Qass 
Book 




IS?6a.. 













■• ^'■' ' 









i^i.^. c 



;-.< 




•^i^li^' 




Digitized by the Internet Arciiive 
in 2010 witii funding from 
Tine Library of Congress 



littp://www.arcliive.org/details/manualtrainingsoOOIiamc 



/ 




THE CHICAGO MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 



MANUAL TRAINING 

THE SOLUTION OF 
SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS. 



BY CHARLES H/HAM. 



ILLUSTRATED BY FIFTEEN ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD. 




LONDON: 

BLACKIE & SON; 49 & 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C. 

CJLASGOW, EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN. 

1886. 






This hook is published in this country hy arrangement with 
Messrs. HARPER cfc BROTHERS, New Yorh. 



By Transfer from 
U.S. Naval ^' cade my 



PREFACE. 



In 1 879 I read a paper before the Chicago Philosophi- 
cal Society on the subject of " The Inventive Genius ; or, 
an Epitome of Human Progress." The suggestion of the 
subject came from Hr. Charles J. Barnes, to whom I desire 
in this public way to ex2Dress my obligation for an intro- 
duction to a profoundly interesting study, and one which 
has given a new direction to all my thoughts. 

At the conclusion of my labors in the preparation of 
the paper, I realized the force of Bacon's remark, that 
"the real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the en- 
dowment of human life with new inventions and riches." 

In tracing the course of invention and discovery, I 
found that I was moving in the line of the progress of 
civilization. I found that the great gulf between the 
savage and the civilized man is spanned by the seven 
hand-tools — the axe,, thts saw, the- plane, the hammer, the 
square, the chisel, and the file — and that the modern 
machine-shop is an aggregation of these tools driven by 
steam. I hence came to regard tools as the great civil- 
izing agency of the world. "With Carlyle I said, " Man 
without tools is nothing; with tools he is all." From 
this point it was only a step to the proposition that, It is 
through the arts alone that all branches of learning find 
expression, and touch human life. Then I said. The true 
definition of education is the development of all the powers 
of man to the culminating point of action ; and this ])ow- 



iv PKEFACE. 

ei* in the concrete, the power to do some useful thing for 
man — this must be the last analysis of educational truth. 

These ideas are not new. ' They pervade Lord Ba- 
con's writings, are admirably formulated in Rousseau's 
" Emile," and were restated by Mr. Herbert Spencer twen- 
ty-five years ago. More than this, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and 
Froebel attempted to carry them into practical operation 
in the school-room, but with only a small measure of suc- 
cess. It remains for the age of steel to show how pow- 
erless mere words are in the presence of things, and so 
to emphasize the demand for a radical reform in educa- 
tional methods. 

In 1880 my attention was drawn to the Manual Train- 
ing Department of the Washington University of St. 
Louis, Mo. In that school I found the realization of Ba- 
con's aphorism, " Education is the cultivation of a just 
and legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things." 
I made an exhaustive study of the methods of the St. 
Louis school, and reached the conclusion that the philos- 
opher's stone in education had been discovered. The col- 
umns of the Chicago Tribune were opened to me, and 
I wrote constantly on the subject for the ensuing three 
years. Meantime the Chicago Manual Training School 
(the first independent institution of the kind in the world) 
was founded and opened, and the agitation spread over 
the whole country, and indeed over the whole civilized 
world. 

This work was commenced two years ago. I found 
the labor much more arduous than I anticipated, and its 
completion has hence been delayed far beyond the time 
originally contemplated for placing it in the hands of a 
publisher. It may be summarized briefly as consisting 
of four divisions : 1. A detailed description of the vari- 



PREFACE. V 

ous laboratory class processes, from the first lesson to tlie 
last, in tlie course of three years. 2. An exhaustive ar- 
gument a posteinori and a fortiori in support of the 
proposition that tool practice is highly promotive of in- 
tellectual growth, and in a still greater degree of the 
upbuilding of character. 3. A sketch of the historical 
period, showing that the decay of civilization and the 
destruction of social organisms have resulted directly 
from defects in methods of education. 4. A brief sketch 
of the history of manual training as an educational force. 

To Dr. John D. Runkle, of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, the founder of manual training as an ed- 
ucational institution in this country, I cannot express 
too strongly my deep obligation for valuable suggestions 
and constant encouragement. To him also am I indebt- 
ed for nearly all my illustrations, as also particularly for 
the excellent portrait of M. Victor Delia Vos, the found- 
er of the new system of education in Russia. I am also 
under obligations to Col. Augustus Jacobson, a leading 
advocate of the new education, for constant counsel and 
su]3port, as also to Dr. Henry II. Belfield, Director of the 
Chicago Manual Training School, and Mr. John S. Clark, 
of Boston. 

Of the authors consulted, I cannot forbear mention of 
Lord Bacon, Rousseau, and Herbert Spencer, whoso great 
works constitute the foundation of the new system of ed- 
ucation according to nature. Nor can I omit to acknowl- 
edge, with all the emphasis of which words are suscepti- 
ble, my obligations to Mr. Samuel Smiles. His works? 
from the lives of the engineers to the shortest of his bi- 
ographies, constitute an inexhaustible treasure - house of 
facts from which I have drawn without stint. Mr. Smiles 
has traced the springs of English greatness to their true 



vi PREFACE. 

source, the workshop. I have attempted to continue his 
oflSce by showing that the workshop is a great education- 
al force, and hence that its educational element ought to 
be incorporated in the system of public instruction. 

The propositions of the following pages involve an ed- 
ucational revolution destined to enlighten, and so ulti- 
mately to redeem manual labor from the scorn of the 
ages of slavery, and, in the end, to render the skilled la- 
borer worthy of high social distinction, thus presenting 
at once a solution not only of the industrial question but 

of the social question. 

Chaeles H. Ham. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CHICAGO MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 

Its Situation on the Boulevard.— Its Tall Chimney.— The Whir of 
Machinery and Sound of the Sledge-hammer.— The School that is 
to dignify Labor. — The Realization of the Dream of Bacon, Rous- 
seau, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel. — Established by the 
Commercial Club.— The School that fitly represents the Age of 
Steel Page 1 

CHAPTER II. 

THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. 

Tools the highest Text -books — How to Use them the Test of 
Scholarship — They are the Gauge of Civilization — Carlyle's Apos- 
trophe to them. — The Typical Hand-tools — The Automata of the 
Machine-shop. — Through Tools Science and Art are United. — The 
Power of Tools — Their Educational Value. — Without Tools Man 
is Nothing ; with Tools he is All. — It is through the Arts alone 
that Education touches Human Life 7 

CHAPTER III. 

THE ENGINE-ROOM. 

The Corliss Engine — A Thing of Grace and Power — The Growth 
of Two Thousand Years — From Hero to Watt — Its Duty as a 
School-master. — The Interdependence of the Ages. — The School 
in Epitome 14 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE DRAWING-ROOM. 

Twenty-four Boys bending over the Drawing-board. — Analysis and 
Synthesis in Drawing. — Geometric Drawing. — Pictorial Drawing. 
— The Principles of Design. — The yEsthctic in Art. — Tlie Fun(hi- 



viii CONTENTS. 

mentals — Object and Constructive Drawing. — Drawing for the 
Exercises in the Laboratories. — The Educational Value of Draw- 
ing — The Language of Drawing. — Every Student an expert 
Draughtsman at the end of the Course Page 16 

CHAPTER V. 

THE CARPENTER'S LABORATORY. 

The Natural History of the Pine-tree — How it is Converted into 
Lumber, what it is Worth, and how it is Consumed. — Where the 
Students get Information. — Working Drawings of the Lesson. — 
Asking Questions. — The Instructor Executes the Lesson. — Instruc- 
tion in the Use and Care of Tools. — Twenty-four Boys Making 
Things — As Busy as Bees. — The Music of the Laboratory. — The 
Self-reliance of the Students 21 

CHAPTER VL 

THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY. 

A Radical Change — From the Square to the Circle; from Angles 
to Spherical, Cylindrical, and Eccentric Forms. — The Rhythm of 
Mechanics. — The Potter's Wheel of the Ancients and the Turning- 
lathe — The Speculation of Holtzapffels on its Origin. — The Greeks 
as Turners. — The Turners of the Middle Ages.— George III. at the 
Lathe. — Maudslay's Slide-rest, and the Revolution it wrought. — 
The Natural History of Black -walnut. — The Practical Value of 
Imagination — Disraeli's Tribute to it; Sir Robei't Peel's Want of 
it. — The Laboratory animated by Steam. — The Boys at the Lathes 
— Their Manly Bearing.— The Lesson 30 

CHAPTER YII. 

THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 

The Iron Age. — Iron the King of Metals. — Locke's Apothegm. — The 
Moulder's Art is Fundamental. — History of Founding. — Remains 
of Bronze Castings in Egypt, Greece, and Assyria. — Layard's Dis- 
coveries. — The Greek Sculptors. — The Colossal Statue of Apollo 
at Rhodes. — The Great Bells of History. — Moulding and Casting 
a Pulley. — Description of the Process, Step by Step. — The Furnace 
Fire. — Pouring the Hot Metal into the Moulds. — A Pen Picture of 
the Laboratory. — Thus were the Hundred Gates of Babylon cast. — 
Neglect of the Practical Arts by Herodotus. — How Slavery has 
degraded Labor. — How ]\Ianual Training is to dignify it 45 



CONTENTS. ix 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE FORGING LABORATORY. 

Twenty-four manly-looking Boys with Sledge-hammer in Hand — 
their Muscle and Brawn. — The Pride of Conscious Strength. — 
The Story of the Origin of an Empire. — The Greater Empire of 
Mechanics. — The Smelter and the Smith the Bulwark of the Brit- 
ish Government. — Coal— its Modern Aspects ; its Early History; 
Superstition regarding its Use. — Dud. Dudley utilizes "Pit-coel" 
for Smelting— the Story of his Struggles ; his Imprisonment and 
Death. — The English People import their Pots and Kettles. — "The 
Blast is on and the Forge Fire sings." — The Lesson, first on the 
Black-board, then in Red-hot Iron on the Anvil. — Striking out the 
Anvil Chorus — the Sparks fly whizzing through the Air. — The 
Mythological History of Iron.— The Smith in Feudal Times — His 
Versatility. — History of Damascus Steel. — We should reverence 
the early Inventors. — The Useful Arts finer than the Fine Arts. — 
The Ancient Smelter and Smith, and the Students in the Manual 
Training School Page 58 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 

The Foundery and Smithy are Ancient, the Machine-tool Shop is Mod- 
ern. — The Giant, Steam, reduced to Servitude. — The Iron Lines of 
Progress — They couvei-ge in the Shop; its triumphs from the AVatch- 
spring to the Locomotive.— The Applications of Iron in Art is the 
Subject of Subjects. — The Story of Invention is the History of 
Civihzation. — The Machine-maker and the Tool-maker are the best 
Friends of Man. — Watt's Great Conception waited for Automatic 
Tools ; their Accuracy. — The Hand-made and the Machine-made 
Watch.— The Elgin (Illinois) Watch Factory.— The Interdepen- 
dence of the Arts. — The Making of a Suit of Clothes. — The Ante- 
room of the Machine-tool Laboratory. — Chipping and Filing. — The 
File-cutter.— The Poverty of Words as compared Avith Things. — 
The Graduating Project. — The Vision of the Instructor 78 

CHAPTER X. 

MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED. 

The ncAV Education is all-sided — its Effect. — A Harmonious Devel- 
opment of the Whole Being. — Examination for Admission to the 
Chicago School. — List of Questions in Arithmetic, Geographv, and 

1- 



X CONTENTS. 

Language. — The Curriculum. — The Alternation of Manual and 
Mental Exercises. — The Demand for Scientific Education — its 
Effect.— Ambition to be useful Page 105 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 

Intelligence is the Basis of Character.- The more Practical the In- 
telligence the Higher the Development of Character.— The use of 
Tools quickens the Intellect.— Making Things rouses the Attention, 
sharpens the Observation, and steadies the Judgment. — History 
of Inventions in England, 1740-1840.— Poor, Ignorant Apprentices 
become learned Men. — Cort, Huntsman, Mushet, Neilson, Ste- 
phenson, and Watt.— The Union of Books and Tools. — Results at 
Rotterdam, Holland; at Moscow, Russia; at Komotau, Bohemia; 
and at St. Louis, Mo.— Tlie Consideration of Overwhelming Im- 
port • 113 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A PRIME NECESSITY. 

The Difference between Ancient and Modern Systems of Education. 
—Plato Blinded by Half-truths. — No place in the present order of 
things for Dogmatisms.— Education commences at Birth. — The In- 
fluence of Woman extends from the Cradle to the Grave. — The 
Crime of Crimes— Neglect to educate Woman. — The Superiority 
of Women over Men as Teachers — Froebel discovered it. — Nature 
designed Woman to Teach ; hence the Importance of Fitting her 
for her Highest Destiny 133 

CHAPTER Xni. 

THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 

Mental Impulses are often Vicious ; but the Exertion of Physical 
Power in the Arts is always Beneficent — hence Manual Training 
tends to correct vicious mental Impulses. — Every mental Impres- 
sion produces a moral Effect.— All Training is Moral as well as 
Mental. — Selfishness is total Depravity; but Selfishness has been 
Deified under the name of Prudence.— Napoleon an Example of 
Selfishness. — The End of Selfishness is Disaster; but PrevaiUng 
Systems of Education promote Selfishness. — The Modern City an 
Illustration of Selfishness. — The Ancient City.— Existing Systems 
of Education Negatively Wrong.— Manual Training supplies the 
lacking Element. — The Objective must take the Place of the Sub- 
jective iu Education. — Words without Acts are as dead as Faith 
without Works 130 



CONTENTS. xi 

CHAPTER XIY. 

THE MIND AND THE HAND. 

The Mind and the Hand are Allies ; the Mind speculates, the Hand 
tests its Speculations in Things.— The Hand explodes the Errors of 
the Mind— it searches after Truth and tinds it in Things.— Mental 
Errors are subtile ; they elude us, but the False in Things stands self- 
exposed.— The Hand is the Mind's Moral Rudder. — The Organ of 
Touch the most Wonderful of the Senses; all the Others are Pas- 
sive ; it alone is Active. — Sir Charles Bell's Discovery of a " Muscular 
Sense."— Dr. Henry Maudsley on the Muscular Sense. — The Hand 
influences the Brain. — Connected Thought impossible without Lan- 
guage, and Language dependent upon Objects; and all Artificial 
Objects are the Work of the Hand. — Progress is therefore the Im- 
print of the Hand upon Matter in Art. — The Hand is nearer the 
Brain than are the Eye and the Ear. — The Marvellous Works of 
the Hand , Page 144 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 

The Legend of Adam and the Stick with which he subdued the Ani- 
mals. — The Stick is the Symbol of Power, and only the Hand can 
wield it. — The Hand imprisons Steam and Electricity, and keeps 
them at hard Labor.— The Destitution of England Two Hundred 
and Fifty Years ago: a Pen Picture. — The Transformation wrought 
by the Hand: a Pen Picture. — It is due, not to Men who make 
Laws, but to Men who make Things. — The Scientist and the In- 
ventor are the World's Benefactors. — A Parallel between the Right 
Honorable William E. Gladstone and Sir Henry Bessemer. — Mr. 
Gladstone a Man of Ideas, Mr. Bessemer a Man of Deeds. — The 
Value of the latter's Inventions. — Mr. Gladstone represents the Old 
Education, Mr. Bessemer the New 157 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE INVENTORS, CIVIL ENGINEERS, AND MECHANICS 
OP ENGLAND, AND ENGLISH PROGRESS. 

A Trade is better than a Profession.— The Railway, Telegraph, and 
Steamship are more Potent than the Lawyer, Doctor, and Priest. — 
Book-makers writing the Lives of the Inventors of last Century.— 
The Workshop to be the Scene of tlie Greatest Triumphs of Mnn. 
—The Civil Engineers of Enirland the Heroes of English Progress. 



ii CONTENTS. 

— The Life of James Brindley, the Canal-maker; his Struggles and 
Poverty. — TheEoUof Honor. — Mr. Gladstone's Significant Admis- 
sion that English Triumphs in Science and Art were won without 
Government Aid. — Disregarding the Common-sense of the Savage, 
Legislators have chosen to learn of Plato, who declared that "The 
Useful Arts are Degrading." — How Improvements in the Arts have 
been met by Ignorant Opposition. — The Power wielded by the 
Mechanic Page 170 



CHAPTER XVII. 

POWER OP STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS. 

A few Million People now wield twice as much Industrial Power as 
all the People on the Globe exerted a Hundred Years ago. — A 
Revolution wrought, not by the Schools and Colleges, but by the 
Mechanic. — The Union between Science and Art prevented by the 
Speculative Philosophy of the Middle Ages. — Statesmen, Lawyers, 
Litterateurs, Poets, and Artists more highly esteemed than Civil 
Engineers, Mechanics, and Artisans. — The Refugee Artisan a Pow- 
er in England, the Refugee Politician worthless. — Prejudice against 
the Artisan Class shown by Mr. Galton in his Work on " Hereditary 
Genius." — The Influence of Slavery: it has lasted Thousands of 
Years, and still Survives 184 

CHAPTER XVIir. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC 
EDUCATION. 

The Past tyrannizes over the Present by Interposing the Stolid Re- 
sistance of Habit. — Habits of Thought like Habits of the Bod}' 
become Automatic. —There is much Freedom of Speech but very 
little Freedom of Thought : Habit, Tradition, and Reverence for 
Antiquity forbid it. — The Schools educate Automatically. — A glar- 
ing Defect of the Schools shown by Mr. John S. Clark, of Boston. 
— The Automatic Character of the Popular System of Education 
shown by the Quincy (Mass.) Expenment. — Several Intelligent 
Opinions to the same Effect. — The Public Schools as an Industrial 
Agency a Failure. — xl Conclusive Evidence of the Automatic 
and Superficial Character of prevailing IMethods of Education in 
the Schools of a large City. — The Views of Colonel Francis W. 
Parker. — Scientific Education is found in the Kindergarten and 
the Manual Training School. — "The Cultivation of Familiarity 
betwixt the Mind and Things." — Colonel Augustus Jacobson on 
the Effect of the New Education 191 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC HDV- 

CA.Tl01<i—ConUmied. 

The Failure of Education in America shown by Statistics of Rail- 
way and IMercantile Disasters. — Shrinkage of Railway Values 
and Failures of Merchants. — Only Three Per Cent, of those en- 
tering Mercantile Life achieve Success. — Business Enterprises 
conducted by Guess : Cause, Unscientific Education. — Savage 
Training is better because Objective. — Mr. Foley, late of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on the Scientific Character 
of Manual Education — Prof. Goss, of Purdue University, to the 
same Effect — also Dr. Belfield, of the Chicago Manual Training 
School. — Students love the Laboratory Exercises. — Demoralizing 
Effect of Unscientific Training. — The Failure of Justice and Leg- 
islation as contrasted with the Success of Civil Engineering and 
Architecture Page 210 



CHAPTER XX. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDU- 
CATION— Contin lied. 

The Training of the Merchant, the Lawyer, the Judge, and the Leg- 
islator contrasted with that of the Artisan. — The Training of the 
Merchant makes him Selfish, and Selfishness breeds Dishonestj'. — 
Professional Men become Speculative Pliilosophers, and test their 
Speculations by Consciousness. — The Artisan forgets Self in the 
Study of Things. — The Search after Truth. — the Story of Palissy. 
— The Hero is the Normal Man; those who Marvel at his Acts are 
abnormally Developed. — Savonarola and John Brown. — The New 
England System of Education contrasted with that of the South. — 
American Statesmanship — its Failure in an Educational Point of 
View. — Why the State Provides for Education ; to protect Prop- 
erty. — The British Government and the Land Question. — The Thor- 
oughness of the Training given by Schools of Mechanic Art and In- 
stitutes of Technology as shown in Things. — Story of the Emperor 
of Germauy and the Needle-maker. — The Iron Bridge lasts a Cen- 
tury, the Act of the Legislator wears out in a Year. — The Cause 
of the Failures of Justice and Legislation. ^The best Law is the 
Act that Repeals a Law; but the Act of the Inventor is never Re- 
pealed. — Things the Source and Issue of Ideas; hence the Neces- 
sity of Training in the Arts 220 



xiv CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXI. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTOEIC. 

EGYPT AND GREECE. 

Fundamental Propositions. — Selfishness the Source of Social Evil ; 
Subjective Education the Source of Selfishness and the Cause of 
Contempt of Labor; and Social Disintegration the Result of Con- 
tempt of Labor and the Useful Arts. — The First Class-distinction 
— the Strongest Man ruled ; his First Rival, the Ingenious Man. — 
Superstition. — The Castes of India and Egypt — how came they 
about ? — Egyptian Education based on Selfishness. — Rise of Egypt 
— her Career ; her Fall ; Analysis thereof. — She Typifies all the 
Early Nations : Force and Rapacity above, Chains and Slavery 
below. — Their Education consisted of Selfish Maxims for the Gov- 
ernment of the Many by the Few, and Government meant the Ap- 
propriation of the Products of Labor. — Analysis of Greek Charac- 
ter — its Savage Characteristics. — Greek Treachery and Cruelty. — 
Greek Venality. — Her Orators accepted Bribes. — Responsibility of 
Greek Education and Philosophy for the Ruin of Greek Civiliza- 
tion. — Rectitude wholly left out of her Scheme of Education. — 
Plato's Contempt of Matter : it led to Contempt of Man and all 
his Works. — Greek Education consisted of Rhetoric and Logic ; all 
Useful Things were hence held in Contempt Page 247 

CHAPTER XXII. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

JROME. 

Vigor of the Early Romans — their Virtues and Vices ; their Rigorous 
Laws ; their Defective Education ; their Contempt of Labor. — Slav- 
ery: its Horrors and Brutalizing Influence. — Education Confined 
to the Arts of Politics and War ; it transformed Courage into 
Cruelty, and Fortitude into Stoicism. — Robbery and Bribery. — The 
Vices of Greece and Carthage imported into Rome. — Slaves con- 
struct all the great Public Works; they Revolt, and the Legions 
Slaughter them. — The Gothic Invasion. — Rome Falls. — False Phi- 
losophy and Superficial Education promoted Selfishness. — Deifica- 
tion of Abstractions, and Scorn of IMen and Things. — Universal 
Moral Degradation. — Neglect of Honest Men and Promotion of 
Demagogues. — The Decline of Morals and Growth of Literature. — 
Darwin's Law. of Reversion, through Selfishness, to Savagery. — 
Contest between the Rich and the Poor. — Logic, Rhetoric, and 
Ruin 259 



CONTENTS. XV 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

THE MIDDLE AOES. 

The Trinity upon which Civilization Rests: Justice, the Arts and 
Labor; and these Depend upon Scientitic Education. — Reason of 
the Failure of Theodoric and Charlemagne to Reconstruct the 
Pagan Civilization. — Contempt of Man. — Serfdom. — The Vices of 
the Time: False Philosophy, an Odious Social Caste, and Igno- 
rance. — The Splendid Career of the Moors in Spain, in Contrast. — 
Effect upon Spain of the Expulsion of the Moors. — The Repressive 
Force of Authority and the Atrocious Philosophy of Contempt of 
Man. — The Rule of Italj^ — a Menace and a Sneer. — The work of 
Regeneration. — The Crusades. — The Destruction of Feudalism. — 
The Invention of Printing. — The Discovery of America. — Investi- 
gation. — Discoveries in Science and Art Page 274 

CHAPTER XXIY. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

EUROPE. 

The Standing Army a Legacy of Evil from the Middle Ages. — It is 
the Controlling Feature of the European Situation. — Its Collateral 
Evils: Wars and Debts. — The Debts of Europe Represent a Series 
of Colossal Crimes against the People ; with the Armies and Na- 
vies they Absorb the Bulk of the Annual Revenue. — The People 
Fleeing from them. — They Threaten Bankruptcy ; they Prevent 
Education. — Germany, the best-educated Nation in Europe, losing 
most by Emigration. — Her People will not Endure the Standing- 
Army. — The Folly of the European International Policy of Hate. 
— It is Possible for Europe to Restore to Productive Employ- 
ments 8,000,000 of men, to place at the Disposal of her Educators 
$700,000,000, instead of $70,000,000 per annum, and to pay her 
National Debts in Fiftj^-four Years, simply by the Disbandment 
of her Armies and Navies. — The Armament of Europe Stands in 
the Wajr of Universal Education and of Universal Industrial Pros- 
perity. — Standing Armies the Last Analysis of Selfishness ; they 
are Coeval with the Revival during the Middle Ages of the Greco- 
Roman Subjective Methods of Education. — They must go out 
when the New Education comes in 285 



xvi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXV. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

AMERICA. 

An Old Civilization in a New Country. — Old Methods in a New Sys- 
tem of Schools. — Sordid Views of Education. — The highest Aim 
Money-getting. — Herbert Spencer on the English Schools. — Same 
Defects in the American Schools. — Maxims of Selfishness. — The 
Cultivation of Avarice. — Political Incongruities. — Negroes escap- 
ing from Slavery called Fugitives from Justice. — The Results of 
Subjective Educational Processes. — Climatic Influences alone saved 
America from becoming a Slave Empire. — Illiteracy. — Abnormal 
Growth of Cities. — Failure of Justice. — Defects of Education shown 
in Reckless and Corrupt Legislation. — Waste of an Empire of Pub- 
lic Land. — Henry D. Lloyd's History of Congressional Land Grants. 
— The Growth and Power of Corporations. — The Origin of large 
Fortunes, Speculations. — Old Social Forces producing old Social 
Evils. — Still America is the Hope of the World. — The Right of 
Suffrage in the United States justifies the Sentiment of Patriotism. 
— Let Suffrage be made Intelligent and Virtuous, and all Social 
Evils will yield to it; and all the Wealth of the Country is subject 
to the Draft of the Ballot for Education. — The Hope of Social Re- 
form depends upon a complete Educational Revolution. .Page 301 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 

The Kindergarten and the Manual Training School one in Principle. 
—Russia solved the Problem of Tool Instruction by Laboratory 
Processes. — The Initiatory Step by M. Victor Della-Vos, Director 
of the Imperial Technical School of Moscow in 1868. — Statement 
of Director Della-Vos as to the Origin, Progress, and Results of the 
New Sj'stem of Training. — Its Introduction into all the Technical 
Schools of Russia. — Dr. John D. Runkle, President of the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology, recommends the Russian System 
in 1876, and it is adopted. — Statement of Dr. Runkle as to how 
he was led to the adoption of the Russian System. — Dr. Woodward, 
of AVashiugton University, St. Louis, Mo., establishes the second 
School in this Country. — His Historical Note in the Prospectus of 
1883-83.— First Class graduated 1883.— Manual Training in the 
Agricultural Colleges — In Boston, in New Haven, in Baltimore, in 
San Francisco, and otlier places. — Manual Training at the ]\Ieeting 
of the National Educational Association, 1884. — Kindergarten and 



CONTENTS. xvii 

Manual Training Exhibits. — Prof. Felix Adler^a School in New 
York City — the most Comprehensive School in the "World. — The 
Chicago Manual Training School the first Independent Institution 
of the Kind — its Inception; its Incorporation; its Opening. Its 
Director, Dr. Belfield. — His Inaugural Address. — Manual Training 
in the Public Schools of Philadelphia. — Manual Training in twen- 
ty-four States. — Revolutionizing a Texas College. — Local Option 
Law in Massachusetts. — Department of Domestic Economy in the 
Iowa Agricultural College. — Manual Training in Tennessee, in 
the University of Michigan, in the National Educational Asso- 
ciation, in Ohio. — The Toledo School for both Sexes. — The Im- 
portance of the Education of Woman. — The Slojd Schools of 
Europe Page 323 



INDEX 36r 



ILLUSTRATIONS, 



TAOR 

The Chicago Manual Trailing School Frontispiece '•' 

The Labokatory of Carpentry 23 

Course in the Laboratory of Carpentry 27 ' 

The Wood-turning Laboratory 31 

Course in the Wood-turning and Pattern IiAboratory. . 41 

The Founding Laboratory 49 

Course in the Founding Laboratory 53 

The Forging Laboratory 59 

Course in the Forging Laboratory G7 

The Machine-tool Laboratory 79 

The Chipping, Filing, and Fitting Laboratory 89 

Course in the Machine-tool Laboratory 95 ' 

The Students with their Books 107 ' 

M. Victor Della-Vos, the Founder of Manual Training 
IN Russia 323 1/ 

Dr. John D. Runkle, the Founder of Manual Training 
in the United States 329 



POWER. 

'His tongue was framed to omisic, 
And Ms hand was armed with skill; 
His face teas the 7nould of beauty. 
And his heart the throne of icill." 

Emekson. 



MANUAL TRAINING. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CHICAGO MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL. 

Its Situation on the Boulevard.— Its Tall Chimney.— The Whir of 
Machinery and Sound of the Sledge-hammer. — The School that is 
to dignify Labor. — The Realization of the Dream of Bacon, Rous- 
seau, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel.— Established by the Com- 
mercial Club.— The School that fitly represents the Age of Steel. 

In a conspicuous place on the principal boulevard in 
tlie city of Chicago is situated the fine brick building, a 
picture of which constitutes the frontis]3iece of this book. 
It occupies an angle formed by the intersection of two 
streets, and consists of four stories and basement. All 
the walls are thickly pierced with windows, affording 
abundant light for the interior, and a tall chimney rises 
above the roof. Smoke issues from the chimney-stack, 
and the hum and whir of machinery is heard, and the 
heavy thud of the sledge-hammer resounding on the an- 
vil smites the ear. Up and down the boulevard, as far 
as the eye can reach, stretch miles of brick, stone, and 
marble dwellings ; and to the north-east, through the 
branches of wide-spreading elms, there is a view of the 
great inland sea on whose bosom floats the commerce of 
an empire. 

Has the secret of making diamonds been discovered, 
and is this the inventor's factory ? 



3 MANUAL TRAINING. 

Ko. This is a school ; the school of the future ; the 
school that is to dignify labor ; the school that is to gen- 
erate power ; the school where every sound contributes 
to the harmony of development, where the brain informs 
the muscle, where thought directs every blow, where the 
mind, the eye, and the hand constitute an invincible 
triple alliance. This is the school that Locke dreamed 
of, that Bacon wished for, that Rousseau described, and 
that Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel struggled in vain 
to establish. 

It is, then, a diamond factory after all. For if it be, 
as claimed, the true school, it is destined to lift the veil 
from the face of Nature, to reveal her most precious 
secrets, and to divert to man's use all her treasures. 

Yes; it is to other schools what the diamond is to 
other precious stones — the last analysis of educational 
thought. It is the philosopher's stone in education ; the 
incarnated dream of the alchemist, which dissolved earth, 
air, and water into their original elements, and recom- 
bined them to compass man's immortality. Through it 
that which has hitherto been impossible is to be rendered 
possible. 

Is it a public school ? 

Yes and no. Yes in this sense — that it is founded for 
the public benefit ; no in this sense — that it is not sup- 
ported from the public revenue. It is j)laced conspicu- 
ously and amid pleasant surroundings, that it may be in 
the public eye a living fountain whence the propaganda 
of the new educational evangel shall promulgate its doc- 
trines and send forth its missionaries. 

Who established it ? 

The Commercial Club, an association consisting of six- 
ty Chicago merchants. Their purpose in founding the 



THE CHICAGO MANUAL TKAINING SCHOOL. 3 

school was industrial, not educational reform. Being 
men of large experience in practical affairs they realized 
that the destruction of the apprentice system would tend 
to a decline of American industrial power, hence they in- 
stituted an inquiry on the subject, " How to increase tlie 
supply of skilled labor?" Several invited guests of the 
club took part in the discussion of the subject on an even- 
ing designated for the purpose. The discussion was car- 
ried beyond the purely industrial scope of the question 
submitted, into the domain of education, and a degree of 
interest was manifested in manual training, the existence 
of which had not been even suspected by the most ardent 
friends of educational reform. Before the club adjourn- 
ed, its members had pledged themselves to xound a man- 
ual training school, and guaranteed for its construction, 
equipment, and support the sum of one hundred thou- 
sand dollars. But in founding this school to secure bet- 
ter mechanics — more skilful workers in wood and iron — 
they " buildgd better than they knew," for they uncon- 
sciously inaugurated an educational revolution. In lay- 
ing the foundations of education in labor it is digni- 
fied and education is ennobled. In such a union there 
is honor and strength, and long life to our institutions. 
For the permanence of the civil compact in this country, 
as in other countries, depends less upon a wide diffusion 
of unassimilated and undigested intelligence than upon 
such a thorough, practical education of the masses in the 
arts and sciences as shall enable them to secure, and qual- 
ify them to store up, a fair share of the aggregate prod- 
uce of labor. 

If this school shall appear like a hive of industry, let 
the reader not be deceived. Its main purpose, intellect- 
ual development, is never lo^t sight of for a moment. It 
^ 2 



4 MANUAL TRAINING. 

is a system of object-teacliing — teacLing througli things 
instead of tlirougli signs of things. It is the embodi- 
ment of Bacon's aphorism — "Education is the cultiva- 
tion of a just and legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind 
and things." The students draw pictures of things, and 
then fashion them into things at the forge, the bench, 
and the turning-latlfe ; not mainly that they may enter 
machine-shops, and with greater facility make similar 
things, but that they may become stronger intellectually 
and morally ; that tliey may attain a wider range of 
mental vision, a more varied power of expression, and so 
be better able to solve the problems of life Avhen they 
shall enter upon the stage of practical activity. 

It is a theory of this school that in the processes of ed- 
ucation the idea should never be isolated from the object 
it represents ; (1) because the idea, being the reflex per- 
ception or shadow of the object, is less clearly defined than 
the object itself, and (2) because joining the object and 
tlie idea intensifies the impression. Separated from its 
object the idea is unreal, a phantom. The object is the 
flesh, blood, bones, and nerves of the idea. Without its 
body the idea is as impotent as the steam that rises from 
the surface of boiling water and loses itself in the air. 
But unite it to its object and it becomes the vital spark, 
the animating force, the Promethean fire. Thus steam 
converts the Corliss engine — a huge mass of lifeless iron 
— into a thing of grace, of beauty, and of resistless power. 
Suppose the teacher, for example, desires to convey to 
the mind of a child having no knowledge of form an 
impression of the shape of the earth ; he says, " It is 
globular." The child's face expresses nothing because 
there is in its mind no conception of the object repre- 
sented by the word globular. The teacher saj's, " It is a 



THE CHICAGO MANUAL TRAINING SCHOOL, 5 

sphere," witli no better success. He adds, " A sphere is 
a body bounded by a surface, every point of which is 
equally distant from a point within called the centre." 
The child's face is still exj^ressionless. The teacher takes 
a handful of moist clay and moulds it into the form of a 
sphere, and cThibiting it, says, " The earth is like this." 
The child claps its hands, utters a cry of delight, and 
exclaims, " It is round like a ball !" 

This is an illustration of the triumph of object-teach- 
ing, the method alike of the kindergarten and the man- 
ual training school. As the child is father of the man, 
so the kindergarten is father of the manual training 
school. The kindergarten comes first in the order of 
development, and leads logically to the manual training 
school. The same principle underlies both. In both it 
is sought to generate power by dealing with things in 
connection with ideas. Both have common methods of 
instruction, and they should be adapted to the whole 
period of school life, and applied to all schools. 

This school, situated on one of the most beautiful 
streets in the world, in the city most precisely represent- 
ative of the present age — the age of steel — is dedicated 
to manual education, to the generation of power, to the 
development of true manhood. And above all, this school 
is destined to unite in indissoluble bonds science and art, 
and so to confer upon labor the highest and justest dig- 
nity. The reason of the degradation of labor was admi- 
rably stated by America's most distinguished education- 
al reformer, the late Mr. Horace Mann, who said, "The 
labor of the world has been performed by ignorant men, 
by classes doomed to ignorance from sire to son ; by the 
bondmen and bondwomen of the Jews, by the helots of 
Sparta, by the captives who passed under the Tioman 



6 MANUAL TRAINING. 

yoke, and by the villeins and serfs and slaves of more 
modern times." 

When it shall have been demonstrated that the high- 
est degree of education results from combining manual 
with intellectual training, the laborer will feel the pride 
of a genuine triumph ; for the consciousness that every 
thought-impelled blow educates him, and so raises him 
in the scale of manhood, will nerve his arm, and fire his 
brain with hope and courage. 



THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. 

Tools tlie Highest Text - books — How to Use them the Test of 
Scholarship— They are the Gauge of Civilization— Carlyle's Apos- 
trophe to them.— The Typical Hand-tools. — The Automata of the 
Machine-shop. — Through Tools Science and Art are United. — The 
Power of Tools — Their Educational Value. — Without Tools Man 
is Nothing ; with Tools he is All. — It is through the Arts alone 
that Education touches Human Life. 

Sacked to tlie majesty of tools miglit be appropriately 
inscribed over the entrance to this school for manual 
education ; for its highest text-books are tools, and how 
to use them most intelligently is the test of scholarship. 
To realize the potency of tools it is only necessary to 
contrast the two states of man — the one without tools, 
the other with tools. See him in the first state, naked, 
shivering with cold, now hiding away from the beasts 
in caves, and now, famished and despairing, gaunt and 
hollow-eyed, creeping stealthily like a panther upon his 
prey. Then see him in the poetic, graphic apostrophe 
of Carlyle. "Man," he says, "is a tool-usiug animal. 
He can use tools, can devise tools ; with these the gran- 
ite mountains melt into light dust before him ; he 
kneads iron as if it were soft paste ; seas are his smooth 
highway, winds and fire his unwearying steeds. Ko- 
where do you find him without tools ; without tools he 
is nothing, with tools he is all !" 

"What a picture of the influence of tools upon civili- 
zation! It is throuo-h the use of tools that man has 



8 MANUAL TRAINING. 

readied the place of absolute supremacy among animals. 
As lie increases his stock of tools he recedes from the 
state of savagery. The great gulf between the aboriginal 
savage and the civilized man is spanned by the seven 
hand-tools — the axe, the saw, the plane, the hammer, the 
square, the chisel, and the file. These are the universal 
tools of the arts, and the modern machine - shop is an 
aggregation of them rendered automatic and driven by 
steam. 

The ancients constructed automata which were ex- 
ceedingly ingenious. In the statues that could walk and 
talk, the Chinese puppets and the marionettes of the 
Greeks there was a hint of the modern automatic tools, 
which, driven by steam, fashion with equal accuracy the 
delicate parts of the watch and tlie huge segments of the 
marine engine. The ancients knew more of science than 
of art. They were familiar with the power of steam, 
but knew not how to apply it to tlie wants of man. 
They knew that steam would turn a spit, but they had 
not a sufficient knowledge of art to convert the power 
they had discovered into a monster of force, and train it 
to bear the burdens of commerce. They never thought 
to apply the jet of steam used to turn a spit to great 
automatic machines, and to fit into them saws and files, 
and needles and drills, and gimlets and planes, and com- 
pel them to do the work of thousands of men. But this 
is precisely what the modern mechanic has accom- 
plished. In making a slave of steam, science and art 
have combined to free mankind. 

We marvel at the dulness of the ancients as shown in 
their failure to utilize in the practical arts the discoveries 
of science. That they should have studied the stars over 
their heads to the nea-lcct of the earth under their feet is 



THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS, 9 

incomprehensible to the modern mind. But will not fut- 
m-e generations marvel at us ? Is it not an astounding 
fact that, with a knowledge of the tremendous influence 
of tools upon the destiny of the human race so graphic- 
ally depicted by Carlyle, the nations have been so slow 
in incorporating tool-practice into educational methods? 
The distinguishing features of modern civilization sprang 
as definitively from cunningly devised and skilfully han- 
dled tools as any effect from its cause. And yet the 
world's statesmen have failed to discover the value of 
tool-practice as an educational agency. The face of the 
globe has been transformed by the union of art and 
science, but the world's statesmen have not discerned the 
importance of uniting them in the curriculum of the 
schools. If the ancients could see us as we see them, 
they would doubtless laugh at us as we laugh at them. 

We might take a lesson from the savage. He is taught 
to fight, to hunt, and to fish, and in these arts the brain, 
the hand, and the eye are trained simultaneously. He is 
first given object-lessons, as the pupil of the kindergarten 
is taught. Then the tomahawk, the spear, and the bow 
and arrow are placed in his hands, and he fights for his 
life, or fishes or hunts for his dinner. The young Indian 
is taught all that it is necessary for him to know, and he 
is educated, practically, in the savage's three workshops 
— the battle-field, the forest and plain, the sea and lake. 
Thus the young savage enters upon the duties of his life 
with an exact practical knowledge of them. He has not 
been taught a theory of fighting, he has used the weap- 
ons of warfare ; he has not studied the arts of fishing and 
hunting, he has handled the spear and the bow and ar- 
row, and their use is as familiar to him as the multiplica- 
tion table is to the boy in the public school. 



10 MANUAL TRAINING. 

We Lave more and better tools than the savage pos- 
sesses. With the aid of science and these tools we har- 
ness steam to our chariot and compel it to draw us whith- 
er we will. We steal fire from the clouds and make it 
serve us as a messenger. We imprison the air, and with 
it stop the flying railway train. With the aid of science 
and these tools we reduce the most subtile forces of nat- 
ure to servitude, but we neither teach our youth how 
to master their elements nor how to use them. 

Tools represent the steps of human progress — in archi- 
tecture, from the mud hut to the modern mansion ; in 
agriculture, from the pointed stick used to tear the turf 
to a thousand and one ingenious instruments of husband- 
dry ; in ship-building, from the rudderless, sailless boat to 
the ocean steamer ; in fabrics, from the matted fleece of 
the shepherd to the varied products of countless looms ; 
in pottery, from the first rude Egyptian cup to the ex- 
quisite vase of the Sevres factory. And so of every art 
that contributes to the comfort and pleasure of man ; the 
development of each has been accomplished by tools in the 
hands of the laborer. 

Since, then, man owes so much to labor, he has doubt- 
less educated the laborer and showered honors upon 
him (?). On the contrary, the labor of the world has been 
performed by the most ignorant classes, by bondmen, by 
helots and captives, by serfs and slaves. Tlie laborer has 
been held in such contempt, and been so debased by ig- 
norance, that he has often violently protested against im- 
provements in the tools of the trades, and with vandal 
hands destroyed the mill, the factory, and the forge erect- 
ed to ameliorate his condition. At the top of the social 
scale the sage has studied the stars and invented systems 
of abstract philosophy ; at the bottom ignorance has dei- 



THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. H 

fied itself and starved. This divorce of science from art 
has resulted in such incongruities as the Pyramids of 
Egypt and periodical famines ; as the hanging gardens 
of Babylon and the horrors of Jewish captivity ; as the 
Greek Parthenon and dwellings without chimneys ; as 
the statues of Phidias and Praxiteles, and royal banquets 
without knives, forks, or spoons ; as the Roman Forum 
and the Roman populace crying for bread and circuses ; 
as Socrates, Plato, Seneca and Aurelius, and Caligula, 
Claudius, N^ero and Domitian. 

On the other hand the union of science with art tun- 
nels the mountain, bridges the river, dams the torrent, 
and converts the wilderness into a fruitful field. 

Science discovers and art appropriates and utilizes ; 
and as science is helpless without the aid of art^ so art is 
dead without the help of tools. Tools then constitute 
the great civilizing agency of the world ; for civilization 
is the art of rendering life agreeable. The savage may 
own a continent, but if he possesses only the savage's 
tools — the spear and the bow and arrow — he will be 
ill-fed, ill-housed, ill -clothed, and poorly protected both 
against cold and heat. He might be familiar with all 
the known sciences, but if he were ignorant of the arts 
his state, instead of being improved, would be rendered 
more deplorable ; for with the thoughts, emotions, sensi- 
bilities, and aspirations of a sage he would still be pow- 
erless to steal from heaven a single spark of fire with 
which to warm his miserable hut. 

In the light of this analysis Carlyle's rhapsody on tools 
becomes a prosaic fact, and his conclusion — that man with- 
out tools is nothing, with tools all — points the way to the 
discovery of the philosopher's stone in education. For 
if man without tools is nothing, to be unable to use tools 

2* 



13 MANUAL TRAINING. 

is to be destitute of power ; and if man with tools is all, 
to be able to use tools is to be all-powerful. And this 
power in the concrete, the power to do some useful thing 
for mankind — this is the last analysis of educational truth. 
There is no better definition of education than that of 
Pestalozzi — " the generation of power." But what kind 
of power? ^ot merely power to think abstractly, to 
speculate, to moralize, to philosophize, but power to act 
intelligently. And the power to act intelligently in- 
volves the exertion, in greater or less degree, of all the 
powers, both mental and physical. Education, then, is 
the development of all the powers of man to the culmi- 
nating point of action. What kind of action ? Action 
in art. What is art ? " The power of doing something 
not taught by nature or instinct ; power or skill in the 
use of knowledge ; the practical application of the rules 
or principles of science." Again we have tlie last analy- 
sis of education — " skill in the use of knowledge ; the 
application of the rules or principles of science." And 
this is tool practice. 

It is unnecessary, in an educational view, to divide 
the arts by the use of the terms " practical " and " fine ;" 
for the fine arts can only exist legitimately where the 
practical arts have paved the way. In a harmonious 
development the artist will enter on the heels of the 
artisan. Art is cosmopolitan. It is not less worthily 
represented by the carj^enter with his square, saw, and 
plane, and the smith with his sledge, than by the sculp- 
tor with his mallet and chisel, and the painter with his 
easel and brush. Both classes contribute to the comfort 
and pleasure of mankind; for comfort is enhanced by 
pleasure, and pleasure is intensified by comfort. It fol- 
lows that the ultimate object of education is tlie attain- 



THE MAJESTY OF TOOLS. 13 

ment of skill in the arts. To this end the speculations 
and investigations of philosophy and the experiments of 
chemistry lead. At the door of the study of the philos- 
opher and of the laboratory of the chemist stands the 
artisan, listening for the newest hint that philosophy can 
.impart, waiting for the result of the latest chemical analy- 
sis. In his hands these suggestions take form ; through 
his skilful manijDulation the faint indications of science 
become real things, suited to the exigencies of human life. 
It is the most astounding fact of history that educa- 
tion has been confined to abstractions. The schools have 
taught history, mathematics, language and literature and 
the sciences, to the utter exclusion of the arts, notwith- 
standing the obvious fact that it is through the arts alone 
that other branches of learning touch human life. As 
Bacon has so aptly exj^ressed it, " The real and legitimate 
goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with 
new inventions and riches." In a word, public education 
stops at the exact point where it should begin to apply 
the theories it has im23arted. At this point the school 
of manual training begins ; not only books but tools are 
put into the hands of the pupil, w^ith this injunction of 
Comenius : " Let those things that have to be done be 
learned by doing them." 



14 MANUAL TKAINING. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ENGINE-ROOM. 

The Corliss Engine — A Thing of Grace and Power — The Growth 
of Two Thousand Years — From Hero to Watt— Its Duty as a 
School-master. — The Interdependence of the Ages. — The School 
in Epitome. 

Let us enter the Manual Training School building and 
take a bird's-eye view of the visible processes of the new 
education. 

The first object that attracts attention is the engine. 
It is a " Corliss," fifty-two horse-power, and makes that 
peculiar kind of noise which conveys to the mind of the 
observer an impression of restrained power. When the 
student, upon entering the school, is shown this beautiful 
machine he is told that it, like all other inventions, is a 
growth — the growth of at least two thousand years ; that 
the power of steam was known to the ancients — the 
Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; that Hero, a philoso- 
pher of Alexandria, invented a crude steam-engine before 
the beginning of the Christian era, and that the engine 
before us, which throbs and trembles under the pressure 
of its battery of steel boilers in doing duty as a school- 
master, is the latest development of Hero's conception. 
The educational idea underlying this fact is the inter- 
dependence of the ages ; each generation is a link be- 
tween the past and the future. " To show," as Philarete 
Chasles says, " that man can only act efiiciently by asso- 
ciation with others, it lias been ordained that each in- 
ventor shall only interpret the first word of the problem 
he sets himself to solve, and that every great idea shall 



THE ENGINE-ROOM. 15 

be the resume, of the past at the same time that it is the 
germ of the fiitm-e." 

The first word of the solution of the steam-power 
problem came from Hero down the ages, through De- 
caus, Papin, Savory, ISTewcomen, Breighton, and Smea- 
ton, to Watt. To Watt is awarded the honor of the 
invention of the modern steam-engine ; but the first con- 
ception of liis engine was derived from an atmospheric 
machine through the accident of it having been placed 
in his hands for repairs. Smeaton was the inventor of 
that atmospheric engine, and his mind was one of the 
links in the chain of intelligences extending back to 
Egypt, through whose united agency the steam-engine 
became a real thing of power in the cunning hands of 
James Watt, of whom the late Dr. Draper said, "He 
conferred on his native country more solid benefits than 
all the treaties she ever made and all the battles she ever 
won." This law governing great achievements is full of 
encouragement to the student of mechanics, for while 
the thought of compassing any great discovery or inven- 
tion may well appall even the boldest, the most humble 
may hope through studious industry to contribute some- 
thing to the sum of human knowledge. 

The engine-room of our school is neater than that of 
the ordinary machine-shop, but the furnace roars like 
any other, its open mouth shows a bank of glowing coals, 
and the " stoker," with grimy hands, wipes the sweat 
from his sooty brow. The whole school is here seen in 
epitome: the "stoker" typifies the student toiling at 
the forge, and in the polished engine, exhibiting both 
grace and power in its automatic action, we see the stu- 
dent's graduating project, a machine, the joint creation 
of brain, eye, and hand. 



16 MANUAL TEAINING. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DKA WING-ROOM. 

Twenty-four Boys bending over the Drawing-board. — Analysis and 
Synthesis in Drawing. — Geometric Drawing. — Pictorial Drawing. 
— The Principles of Design. — The Esthetic in Art.— The Funda- 
mentals — Object and Constructive Drawing. — Drawing for the 
Exercises in the Laboratories. — The Educational Value of Draw- 
ing — The Language of Drawing. — Every Student an expert 
Draughtsman at the end of the Course. 

Passing from the engine-room in tlie basement to tlie 
second story we enter the room assigned to drawing, 
where twenty-four boys are bending over the drawing- 
board, pencil in hand. Every school-day for three years 
these boys will spend an hour in this room. Each divi- 
sion of drawing — free-hand and mechanical — is thor- 
oughly taught. Every graduate of the institution will 
be an expert draughtsman. The room is very still, only 
the scratching sound of twenty-four pencils is heard. 
The instructor moves about among the students, with 
here and there a hint, a suggestion, a correction, or a 
word of commendation — " good." 

Drawing is the rej^resentation on paper of the facts, 
and the appearance to the eye of forms. The exercise 
proceeds by both analysis and synthesis, A cube is di- 
vided into all the geometric figures of which it is suscep- 
tible, and these figures are imitated with the pencil on 
paper. Then the figures are reunited, and the cube is 
similarly imitated. As the child in the kindergarten is 
taught several fundamental geometric facts through the 



THE DRAWING-ROOM. 



17 



use of variously subdivided cubes, so the student of 
drawing is taugbt by a similar process how to represent 
these fundamental facts on paper. For example (1), the 
student is taught to draw the following (sketches 1, 2, 
and 3) geometric forms 



e 



of the square, oblong, 

and circle ; (2) he is 

taught (sketches 4, 5, 6, 

and 7) to represent the 

facts of the oblong block and cylinder ; (3) these facts 

are expressed as follows (sketches 8 and 9) in working 



4 5 






p 



drawings. Sketches 8 and 9 are such drawings as would 

be placed in the hands of a mechanic as plans for the 
manufacture of the solids they repre- 
sent ; and the most elaborate working 
drawings for building and mechanical 
purposes are merely the complete de- 
velopment of this division of the art. 
Another division of drawing con- 
sists in the representation of solids 

or objects as they appear to the eye or pictorially. The 

oblong block and cylinder, for exam- ^__ ^ 

pie, appear to the eye very differently 

from their facts represented in the 

working drawings (sketches 8 and 9), 

as thus — 

The development of this division of drawing leads to 

general pictorial representation. 



18 MANUAL TRAINING. 

Finally the mastery of the art of drawing involves a 
study of the principles of design as applied to industrial 
articles with the purpose of enhancing their value, as de- 
signs for wall-paper, carpets, embroideries, tapestry, tex- 
tiles generally, and decorative work in wood. This is 
the aesthetic element in the art which appeals to and de- 
velops the student's taste. It is an important feature of 
drawing, not less on this account than from the fact that 
the designer's profession is a very lucrative one, but it is 
less important than object and constructive drawing, be- 
cause less fundamental. Besides, object and constructive 
work in drawing come first in the order of development, 
and it is an inexorable rule of the new education to fol- 
low implicitly the hints of nature. 

The basis of the art of drawing is geometry, and its 
«, J, c consists in a knowledge of certain geometrical 
lines, curves, and angles. This knowledge is gained 
from examples on the black-board which are reproduced 
on paper. But to relieve the student of this school 
from the tedium of reproducing, hundreds of times in 
succession, the same lines, angles, and curves, object-draw- 
ing is introduced very early in the course ; and to ren- 
der the exercise more attractive, as well as to impress it 
more firmly upon the mind, the objects drawn during the 
day are made features of the construction lesson in the 
carpenter's laboratory, the w^ood or iron turning labora- 
tory, or the laboratory of founding on the following day. 
At first the objects selected for this exercise are of a very 
simple character, as a piece of plain moulding— a piece of 
elaborate moulding ; parts of a drawing-board — an entire 
drawing-board ; parts of a table or desk — an entire table 
or desk ; parts of a draughtsman's stool — an entire stool ; 
parts of a chair — an entire chair. 



THE drawing-room:. 19 

As the student advances in the general course he ad- 
vances in object and constructive drawing, from simple 
to complex forms. He draws, for example, various parts 
of the steam-heating apparatus, and from these draughts 
makes working drawings of patterns for moulding. These 
he works out in the Carpenter's Laboratory, and thence 
takes them to the moulding-room, where they are nsed 
in the lesson given in moulding for casting. This method 
of instruction leads to a critical analysis of the entire in- 
terior of the school building. Each article is resolved 
into the original elements of its construction, and each 
element or part is first represented on paper, then ex- 
panded into working drawings, and then wrought out in 
wood and iron. Finally the student reaches the engine, 
every part of which is made the subject of exhaustive 
study ; the facts of every part are represented on paper, 
working drawings of every part are made, and every part 
is reproduced in steel and iron in miniature, and, as a 
triumph of drawing, a representation on paper of the 
completed engine is produced. 

The value of drawing as an educational agency is sim- 
ply incalculable. It is the first step in manual training. 
It brings the eye and the mind into relations of the 
closest intimacy, and makes the hand the organ of both. 
It trains and develops the sense of form and proportion, 
renders the eye accurate in observation, and the hand 
cunning in execution. 

The students are intent upon their work. The eye is 
busy acting as interpreter between the mind and the 
hand. Having conveyed the impression of an object to 
the mind, under its direction it now ^photographs the 
object on paper, and the hand obeying tlie will traces it 
out in lines. Thus the power is gained of multiplying 



20 MANUAL TRAINING. 

forms of tilings with the pencil as words are multiplied 
by types. 

Drawing is a language — the language in which art re- 
cords the discoveries of science. It is not German, it is 
not French, it is not English — it is universal — common 
to all draughtsmen. The face of the student exhibits 
vivid flashes of intelligence as the picture reveals itself 
under his hand. Each line is a word, an angle completes 
the sentence ; with a curve and a little delicate shading 
we have a paragraph. The picture begins to glow with 
thought. The student's face flushes, his heart beats quick 
and his hand trembles. But he restrains himself, and 
adds more lines, more angles and curves, more shading, 
and the picture is complete. It stands out in bold relief, 
and looks like a real thing. If the student knows the story 
of the brazen statue of Albertus Magnus he half expects 
his picture of a locomotive to move. He listens for the 
sound of the hissing steam, and a smile lights up his face 
as the illusion vanishes. Presently he will take his draw- 
ing to the shop, and at the bench, the lathe, the anvil, 
and the forge, reproduce it in iron and steel, and actually 
vitalize it with steam. 



THE carpenter's LABORATORY. 21 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE CARPENTER'S LABORATORY. 

The Natural History of the Pine-tree — How it is Converted into 
Lumber, what it is "\Yorth, and how it is Consumed. — Where the 
Students get Information. — Worliing Drawings of the Lesson. — 
Asking Questions. — The Instructor Executes the Lesson. — Instruc- 
tion in the Use and Care of Tools. — Twenty-four Boys Making 
Things— As Busy as Bees. — The Music of the Laboratory. — The 
Self-reliance of the Students. 

Passing down a fliglit of stairs and crossing a liall we 
enter tlie Carpenter's Laboratory. Here we find twenty- 
four boys seated before a black-board. At tlieir left 
stands the instructor with a piece of Avliite pine in his 
hand. The piece of pine is the subject of his lecture. 
He frequently breaks the thread of his remarks to ask 
questions, and he is as frequently interrupted by ques- 
tions from members of the class. The scene closely re- 
sembles an animated discussion, of which a desire to learn 
by asking questions is the chief characteristic. The dis- 
cussion is about pine-trees and pine lumber. A pale- 
faced, city-bred boy rises to describe the pine-tree. He 
describes a fir-tree, such as may be seen in well-kept ur- 
ban grounds and parks, and describes it in well-chosen, 
almost poetic phrase. The instructor shakes his head, 
but with a genial smile, and recognizes a boy whose face 
is tanned brown, and who rises at the nod and stands 
rather awkwardly as he speaks. He has seen the pine 
in its native wilds, and he describes quite graphically 
its long, bare trunk and slender limbs. But he says 



23 MANUAL TRAINING. 

nothing of its narrow, linear leaves, of a dark green color, 
nor of its woody cones, nor of the ^olian-harp-like sound 
of the wind in its branches. Why, the instructor wants 
to know, and he propounds a series of questions, the an- 
swers to which afford a brief sketch of the boy's history. 
His father is a dealer in pine logs, and once this boy 
w^ent w^ith him into the pineries of Northern Michigan 
in mid- winter, when the landscape was white with snow, 
and there saw the huge trees sway back and forth under 
the w^oodman's axe, saw them topple over, and heard the 
loud crash of their fall, saw them trimmed and sawed 
into mill-logs. He took no note of the woody cones, nor 
of the narrow leaves of the pine, nor did the sound of 
the wdnd in its branches make any impression upon his 
mind. Pie saw the pine as his father saw it, with the 
eyes of a lumbennan. He learned just one thing, and 
learned it so well that he is able to tell the story of the 
pine-tree from the moment of its fall from the stump in 
the great forest to its arrival at the mill, and thence, cut 
into boards, planks, and timber, to the raft or schooner 
bound for Chicago. 

Then the different varieties of the pine-tree are enu- 
merated, and the uses to which their woods are severally 
adapted mentioned. The countries which chiefly pro- 
duce the pine-tree are named, and the climatic conditions 
most favorable to its growth briefly referred to. This 
discussion leads to the subject of commerce in pine lum- 
ber — quantity consumed, demand and supply, etc; and 
this in turn brings a boy to his feet with the statement 
that at the present rate of consumption the supply of 
pine in ]^ortli America will be exhausted in fifty years. 
In answer to a question the boy says he read the state- 
ment in a newspaper. This leads to further inquiry as 



THE CARPENTER S LABORATORY. 25 

to tlie sources of information sought bj the members of 
the class, whereupon it appears that fifteen boys have 
consulted the title " pine " in some encyclopedia with a 
view to the present lesson, and that eighteen boys have 
read the market report under the title " lumber " in a 
daily journal, in order to learn the value of white-pine 
boards. The value being stated by half a dozen boys, 
each member of the class computes the cost of the piece 
of pine in the hands of the teacher. 

Ten minutes having been consumed in the inquiry into 
the nature and value of the wood in which the lesson of 
the day is to be wrought, the instructor makes working 
drawings of the lesson on the black-board. It may con- 
sist of a plain joint, a mitre joint, a dove -tail joint, a 
tenno and mortise, or a frame involving all these and 
more manipulations. In the few minutes devoted to this 
exercise any question that occurs to the mind of the stu- 
dent may be asked, and no impatience is manifested or 
felt if the questions are numerous and reiterated. But 
as a matter-of-fact very few questions are asked during 
the black-board exercise, because each student, having 
gone over every step of it in his drawing-class the day 
previous, is perfectly familiar with the subject. 

The instructor now quits the black-board for the bench, 
where, in the j)resence of the whole class, he executes the 
difficult parts of the lesson, still propounding and answer- 
ing questions. If a new tool is brought into requisition, 
instruction is given in its care and use. Xow the boys 
repair to their benches, throw off their coats, and seize 
their tools. In a moment the silence and repose of the 
recitation-room are exchanged for the noise and activity 
of the laboratory. A quarter of an hour ago we left 
twenty-four boys, with bowed heads, making drawings of 



26 MANUAL TRAINING. 

tilings ; for a quarter of an hour we have listened to a 
peculiar kind of recitation involving much practical knowl- 
edge on the subject of the pine-tree and its product, lum- 
ber ; now we stand in the presence of twenty-four boys, in 
twenty-four different attitudes of labor, making things. 
They are literally as busy as bees, using the square, the 
saw, the plane, and the chisel ; they are, as the journey- 
man carpenter would say, " getting out stuff for a job." 
The coarse, buzzing sound of the cross-cut saw resounds 
loudly through the room ; above this bass note the sharp 
tenor tone of the rip-saw is heard, and the rasping sound 
of half a dozen planes throwing off a series of curling 
pine ribbons comes in as a rude refrain. The faces of the 
boys are ruddy with the glow of exercise ; the pale-faced 
boy who mistook a fir-tree for a pine will have his revenge 
on the angular boy from the Michigan pinery, for he is 
doing a finer piece of work than the other. 

In the midst of the harmonious confusion caused by the 
use of saws, planes, mallets, and chisels, the instructor raps 
on his desk, and silence is restored ; three or four boys 
stand in a group about the instructor's desk, the others 
pause and wipe the perspiration from their brows. It is 
a picture full of interest — twenty-four boys, with flushed, 
eager faces, lifting their eyes simultaneously to the face of 
the instructor, waiting for the hint which is to come, and 
which is sure in tliese now active minds to result in a 
prompt solution of the main problem of the day's lesson. 
A sindlar question from several boys shows the instruct- 
or that the lesson has not been made clear; hence the 
general explanation which follows the call to order. So 
the work goes on, with now and then an interruption. 
There is a student trying to fit a tenon into its mortise ; 
he is nervous and impatient ; the instructor observes him, 



THE CARPENTERS LABORATORY. 29 

foresees a catastrophe, and moves towards liis bencli. But 
it is too late ! The tenon being forced the mortise splits, 
and the discomforted student makes a wry face. The in- 
structor approaches with a M'ord of good cheer, but with 
the warning aphorism that "haste makes waste." The 
student's face flushes, and he chronicles his failure as 
Huntsman, the inventor of cast-steel, did his, by burying 
the wreck under a pile of shavings, and commencing, as 
the lawyers say, de novo. Thus the lesson proceeds " by 
the usual laboratory methods employed in teaching the 
sciences;" the class learns the thing to be done by do- 
ing it. The students are at their best, because the lesson 
to be learned compels a close union between the three 
great powers of man — observation, reflection, and action. 
1S.0 student seeks aid from another, because such a course 
would be impossible without the knowledge of the whole 
class. A feeling of self-reliance is thus developed, the 
disposition to shirk repressed, and a sense of sturdy inde- 
pendence encouraged and promoted. 



30 MANUAL TRAINING. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY. 

A Radical Change — From the Square to the Circle; from Angles 
to Spherical, Cylindrical, and Eccentric Forms. — The Rhythm of 
Mechanics. — The Potter's Wheel of the Ancients and the Turning- 
lathe — The Speculation of Holtzapffels on its Origin. — The Greeks 
as Turners. — The Turners of the Middle Ages. — George III. at the 
Lathe. — Maudslay's Slide-rest, and the Revolution it wrought. — 
The Natural History of Black - walnut. — The Practical Value of 
Imagination — Disraeli's Tribute to it ; Sir Robert Peel's Want of 
it. — The Laboratory animated by Steam. — The Boys at the Lathes 
— Their Manly Bearing. — The Lesson. 

"When the twenty-four boys of tlie Carpenter's Labora- 
tory have become expert in the use of the tools employed 
in carpentry they will be introduced to the Wood-turning 
Laboratory. The change is radical — from the square to 
the circle, from the prose to the poetry of mechanical 
manipulation. Carpentry is distinguished for its cor- 
ners and angles, turnery for its spherical, cylindrical, and 
eccentric forms. In these forms ISTature abounds and 
delights, and it is- in these forms that the rhythm of 
mechanics exists. It is by the Turners that the arts are 
supplied with a thousand and one things of use and 
beauty. The machines, great and small, from the loco- 
motive to the stocking-knitter — without which the work 
of the modern world could not be done — these wonder- 
ful contrivances, seemingly more cunning than the hand 
of man, owe their very existence to the turning-lathe. 

The skilled instructor in this department of the school 



THE WOOD-TUBNING LABORATOltY. 33 

loves to dwell u23on the history of turning. Its origin is 
enveloped in the obscurity of early Egyptian traditions. 
It is the subject of one of the oldest myths, which runs 
thus: "ISTum, the directing spirit of the universe, and 
oldest of created beings, fii-st exercised the potter's art, 
moulding the human race on his Avheel. Having made 
the heavens and the earth, and the air, and the sun and 
moon, he modelled man out of the dark ISTilotic clay, and 
into his nostrils breathed the breath of life." 

The Potter's Wheel of the ancients contained the germ 
of the turning-lathe found in every modern machine-shop, 
whether for the manipulation of wood or iron. Holtz- 
apffels has an ingenious speculation as to the origin of 
the invention of the lathe. In his elaborate work on 
"Turning and Mechanical Manipulation" he says, 

" It would appear probable that the origin of the lathe 
may be found in the revolution given to tools for pierc- 
ing objects for ornament or use. At first it may be sup- 
posed that a spine or thorn from a tree, a splinter of 
bone or a tooth, was alone used and pressed into the 
work as we should use a brad-awl. The j)i'Ocess would 
naturally be slow and unsuitable to hard materials, and 
this probably suggested to the primitive mechanic the 
idea of attaching a splinter of bone or flint to the end of 
a short piece of stick, rubbing which between the palms 
of his hands would give a rotary motion to the tool." 

Of the steps of progress in invention, from the rude 
turning-tools of the ancients down to tlie beginning of 
the present century, when Maudslay's improvement made 
the lathe the king of the machine-shop, little is known. 
By the Greeks the invention of turning was ascribed to 
Daedalus. Pliidias, who produced the two great master- 
pieces of Greek art, Athene and Jupiter Olympius, was 



34 MANUAL TRAINING. 

familiar with the then existing system of wood-turning. 
In cutting figures on signets and gems in such stones as 
agate, carnelian, chalcedony, and amethyst, the Greek 
artificers used the wheel and the style. In the abundant 
ornamentation of Roman dwellings — their elaborately 
carved chairs, tables, bedsteads, sofas, and stools — there 
is ample evidence of a knowledge of the art of turning 
in wood. Improvements were made in turning - tools, 
and fine ornamental work was done by the artisans of 
the Middle Ages, to which the cathedrals and palaces 
of the time bear witness. Later, during the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries, turning became a fashiona- 
ble amusement among the French nobility and gentry. 
Louis XYI. was an expert locksmith, and spent much 
of his royal time in that pursuit. Tlie fashion extended 
to England. George III. is said to have been an expert 
wood-turner, to have been " learned in wheels and tread- 
les, chucks and chisels ;" and as a matter of course a pur- 
suit indulged by kings was followed by many nobles. 
There is, however, no evidence that those distinguished 
amateurs made any improvements in the tools they used ; 
inventions and discoveries in this as in all departments 
of art came from the other end of the social scale. 
When the Spaniards sacked Antwerp in 15S5 the Flem- 
ish silk-weavers fled to England and set up their looms 
there ; and a century later, upon the revocation of the 
Edict of ITantes, the silk industry of England received a 
new accession of refugee artisans consisting of persecuted 
Protestants. Doubtless with the Flemish weavers there 
crossed the British Channel representatives of all the 
practical arts, including that of turning ; for in another 
hundred years England took the front rank among na- 
tions in nearly all industrial pursuits. 



THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY. 35 

Among the great inventions and discoveries which dis- 
tinguished tlie last quarter of the eighteenth centurj, 
Maudslay's slide-rest attachment to the lathe was one of 
the greatest, if not the greatest. Without it Watt's in- 
vention would have been of little more real service to 
mankind than the French automata of the first quarter of 
the same century — the mechanical peacock of Degennes, 
Yaucauson's duck, or Maillardet's conjurer. Mr. Samuel 
Smiles, in his admirable book on " Iron-workers and Tool- 
makers," declares that this passion for automata, which 
gave rise to many highly ingenious devices, "had the 
effect of introducing among the higher order of artists 
habits of nice and accurate workmanship in executing 
delicate pieces of machinery." And he adds, " The same 
combination of mechanical powers which made the steel 
spider crawl, the duck quack, or waved the tiny rod of 
the magician, contributed in future years to purposes of 
higher import — the wheels and pinions, which in these 
automata almost eluded the human senses by their mi- 
nuteness, reappearing in modern times in the stupendous 
mechanism of our self-acting lathes, spinning-mules, and 
steam-engines." 

That there was a logical connection between the two 
eras of mechanical contrivance — that of the iufrenious 
automata and that of the useful modern machines — is 
extremely probable. That the refugee artisans from 
Antwerp and from France had a stimulating effect upon 
English invention and discovery there can be little doubt; 
and that the French automata, which were much Avrittcn 
about, and exhibited as a triumph of mechanical genius, 
became known to and exercised an influence upon the 
minds of intelligent mechanics is equally probable. We 
are therefore surprised to find Mr. Smiles arriving at a 



36 MANUAL TRAINING. 

conclusion in sucli direct conflict with liis general views 
of the gradual growth of inventions, namely, "that 
Maudslay's invention was entirely independent of all 
that had gone before, and that he contrived it for the 
special purpose of overcoming the difiiculties which lie 
himself experienced in turning out duplicate parts in 
large numbers." 

But however this may be, Mr. Maudslay's invention 
revolutionized the workshop. Before its introduction 
the tool of tlie artisan was guided solely by muscular 
strength and the dexterity of the hand ; the smallest varia- 
tion in the pressure applied rendered the work imperfect. 
The slide-rest acting automatically changed all that. With 
it thousands of duplicates of the most ponderous, as well 
as the most minute pieces of machinery, are executed 
with the utmost precision. Witliout it the steam-engine, 
whether locomotive or stationary, would have been hard- 
ly more than a dream of genius ; for the monster that is 
to be fed with steam can be properly constructed only by 
automatic steam-driven tools ; or, as another has expressed 
it, " Steam-engines were never properly made until they 
made themselves." 

Ten minutes are thus agreeably and profitably occu- 
pied by the instructor in a review of the history of a 
single invention, and its relations to the whole field of 
mechanical work. 

Another branch of the lesson consists of an inquiry into 
the natural history, qualities, value, and common uses of 
the wood which is to be the material of the day's ma- 
nipulation — black-walnut. Holding a piece of the pur- 
plish brown wood high in his hand the instructor dis- 
charges, as it were, a volley of questions at the class, 
"What is it called?" "Where is it fomd ?" "How 



THE WOOD-TUENING LABORATORY. 37. 

large does tlie tree grow?" "For what is the wood 
chiefly used ?" Up go a dozen hands. The owner of one 
of the hands is recognized, and he rises to tell all about 
it, but is only allowed to say " black-walnut." The next 
speaker is permitted to say that "the black -walnut is 
found all over North America ;" the next that it is more 
abundant west of the Alleghanies, and most abundant in 
the valley of the Mississippi ; the next that in a forest 
it has a limbless trunk from thirty to fifty feet high, 
but in the " open " branches near the ground ; the next 
that it is extensively used in house -finishing, in furni- 
ture, for all kinds of cabinet-work, and especially for 
gunstocks. 

Further inquiry elicits the information that the black- 
wain at is a quick-growing, large tree ; that its wood is 
hard, fine-grained, durable, and susceptible of a high pol- 
ish, and that through use and exposure it turns dark, and 
with great age becomes almost black. One student de- 
scribes the leaves, another the fruit or nuts, and states 
that they are used in dyeing; a third states that the 
black-walnut is a great favorite for planting in the tree- 
less tracts of the West, on account of its rapid growth 
and the value of its timber. When the subject appears 
to be nearly exhausted, a boy at the farther end of one of 
the forms rises timidly and tells the story of the late Mr. 
W. C. Bryant's great black-walnut-tree at Roslyn, Long 
Island. He concludes, excitedly, " It is one hundred and 
seventy years old and twenty-five feet in circumference." " 

* "At Ellerslie, the birthplace of Wallace, exists an oak which 
is celebrated as having been a remarkable object in his time, and 
which can scarcely, therefore, be less than seven hundred years old. 
Near Staines there is a yew-tree older than Magna Charla (1215), and 
the yews at Fountains Abbey, in Yorkshire, are probably more than 



38 MANUAL TRAINING. 

The timid boy dwells upon his story of the "big" tree 
with evident fondness, and his eyes dilate with satisfac- 
tion as he resumes his seat. The circumstance of the 
great age no less than the enormous size of the tree has 
caj)tivated his imagination. The discriminating instruct- 
or will not fail to note such incidents of the lesson. It 
is through them that the special aptitudes of students are 
disclosed. The instructor will always bear prominently 
in mind that the purpose of the school is not to make 
mechanics but men. ~Nov will he forget, as Buckle re- 
marked, that Shakespeare preceded jN^ewton. Buckle pays 
a glowing tribute to the usefulness of the imagination. 
He says, " Shakespeare and the poets sowed the seed which 
Newton and the philosophers reaped. . . . They drew 
attention to nature, and thus became the real founders of 
all natural science. They did even more than this. They 
first impregnated the mind of England with bold and 
lofty conceptions. They taught the men of their gener- 
ation to crave after the unseen." 

Disraeli, in his matchless biography of Lord George 
Bentinck, in summing up the character of a great Eng- 
lish statesman is equally emphatic in praise of the imagi- 
nation as a practical quality. He says, 

" Thus gifted and tlius accomplished, Sir Eobert Peel 
had a great deficiency — he was without imagination. 
Wanting imagination, he wanted prescience. 'No one 
was more sagacious when dealing with the circumstances 
before him ; no one penetrated the present with more 
acuteness and accuracy. His judgment was faultless, 

twelve hundred years old. Eiglit olive-trees still exist in the Garden 
of Olives at Jerusalem wliicli are known to be at least eight hundred 
years old." — "Vegetable Phj^siology." By William B. Carpenter, 
M.D., F.R.S., F.G.S. London: Bell and Daldy. 1865. p. 78. 



THE WOOD-TURNING LABORATORY. 39 

provided lie had not to deal with the future. Thus it 
hap23ened through his long career, that while he always 
was looked upon as the most prudent and safest of lead- 
ers, he ever, after a protracted display of admirable tac- 
tics, concluded his campaigns by surrendering at discre- 
tion. He was so adroit that he could prolong resistance 
even beyond its term, but so little foreseeing that often 
in the very triumph of his manoeuvres he found himself 
in an untenable position." 

The timid boy has imagination ; if he has application 
and the logical faculty he may become an inventor, or he 
may become an artist — an engraver or a designer of works 
of art — or he may become a man of letters. To the man 
of vivid imagination and industry all avenues are open ; 
Disraeli's wonderful career offers a striking illustration 
of the truth of this proj^osition. The true purpose of 
education is the harmonious development of the whole 
being, and the purpose of this turning laboratory is to edu- 
cate these twenty-four boys, not to make turners of them. 

The laboratory is a labyrinth of belts, large and small, 
of wheels, big and little, of pulleys and lathes. A stu- 
dent, at a word from the instructor, moves a lever a few 
inches, and the breath of life is breathed into the compli- 
cated mass of machinery. The throbbing heart of the 
engine far away sends the currents of its power along 
shafting and pulleys. The dull, monotonous wliir of 
steam-driven machinery salutes the ear, and the twenty- 
four students take their places at the lathes. They are 
from fourteen to seventeen years of age, and range in 
height from undersize to " full-grown." They look like 
little men. Their faces are grave, showing a sense of re- 
sponsibility. They arc to handle edge-tools on wood rapid- 
ly revolved by the power of steam. There is peril in an 



40 MANUAL TRAINING. 

uncautious step, and deatli lurks in the shafting. Of these 
dangers they have been repeatedly warned ; and there is 
in their bearing that manifestation of wary coolness which 
we call "nerve," and which in an emergency develops 
into a lofty heroism capable of sublime self-sacrifice. 

This is the very essence ef education, its informing spir- 
it. The student no longer thinks merely of becoming an 
expert turner ; he thinks of becoming a man ! All the 
powers of his mind are roused to vigorous action ; the 
imagination illumes the path, and the reason, following 
with firm bnt cautious step, drives straight to the mark. 
Rapid development results from the combination of prac- 
tice with theory — rapid becatase orderly, or natural. The 
knowledge acquired is at once assimilated, and becomes 
a mental resource, subject to draft like a bank account. 
But unlike a bank account it increases in the ratio of the 
frequency with which drafts are made upon it, and the 
result is the student leaves school at seventeen years of 
age with the reasoning experience of an ordinarily edu- 
cated man of forty. 

The lesson has been announced by the instructor, its 
chief points stated and analyzed, its place in the scale (so 
to speak) of the art of turnery defined, its educational 
value to the mind, the hand, and the eye shown, and the 
points of difiiculty involved so emphasized as to lead to 
painstaking care in the execution of crucial parts. The 
new tool required by the lesson is handled in presence of 
the waiting class by the instructor ; the time of its inven- 
tion stated ; the name of its inventor given ; the method 
of its manufacture described ; and how to sharpen, take 
care of, and use it explained with such minuteness of de- 
tail as to insure the making of a permanent impression 
upon the minds of students. 



THE WOOD-TURNINa LABORATORY. 43 

The wood-turner's case contains more tlian a hundred 
tools, perhaps a hundred and fifty, but not more than a 
score of tliem are fundamental ; the others are subsidiary, 
and require very little if any explanation. 

The lesson may be one in simple turning, as a table-leg, 
the round of a chair, or parts of a section of a miniature 
garden-fence ; or it may be a set of pulleys, or patterns 
for various forms of pipe. The pieces of wood to be 
wrought or manijoulated lie at the feet of the student, 
and the working drawing (drawn by the student himself) 
lies on the bench before him. The piece of wood to be 
turned first is adjusted, the student touches a lever over 
his head which sets the lathe in motion, takes the required 
tool in hand, and the work begins. Guided by the auto- 
matic slide-rest, the sharp point of the tool chips away 
the revolving wood until it assumes the form of the 
drawing lying under the eye of the operator. Thus the 
lesson proceeds to the end of the prescribed period — two 
hours. The master watches every step of its progress. 
If a student is puzzled he receives prompt assistance, so 
that no time may be lost. Indeed the relations between 
instructor and students are such, or ought to be such, that 
the question is asked before the puzzled mind falls into a 
rut of profitless speculation through revolving in a circle. 
But if the true sequential method of study is followed 
the student rarely fails, from the vantage ground of a 
step securely taken, to comprehend the nature of the 
next step in the regular order of succession. This is the 
Russian system, and it is the method of the wood-turnery 
as well as of every department of the Manual Training 
School. Hence a certain tool having been mastered, 
the next tool in the regular order of succession is more 
easily mastered, because (1) each tool contains a hint of 

3* 



44 MANUAL TRAINING. 

the nature of its successor, and (2) each addition to the 
student's stock of knowledge confers an increased capa- 
bility of comprehension. 

When the lesson is concluded the whir of the machin- 
ery ceases, and a great silence falls upon the class as the 
students assemble about the instructor, each presenting 
his piece of work. This is the moment of friendly criti- 
cism. The instructor handles each specimen, comments 
upon the character of the workmanship, points out its 
defects, and calls for criticisms from the class. These 
are freely given. There is an animated discussion, involv- 
ing explanations on the part of the instructor of the 
various causes of defects, and suggestions as to suitable 
methods of amendment. Then the pieces of work are 
marked according to the various degrees of excellence 
they exhibit, and the class is dismissed. 



THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 45 



CHAPTER Vn. 

THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 

The Iron Age.— Iron the King of Metals.— Locke's Apothegm.— The 
Moulder's Art is Fundamental.— History of Founding.— Remains 
of Bronze Castings in Egypt, Greece, and Assyria. — Layard's Dis- 
coveries.— The Greek Sculptors.— The Colossal Statue of Apollo 
at Rhodes.— The Great Bells of History.— Moulding and Casting 
a Pulley.— Description of the Process, Step by Step. — The Furnace 
Fire.— Pouring the Hot Metal into the Moulds. — A Pen Picture of 
the Laboratory. — Thus were the Hundred Gates of Babylon cast. — 
Neglect of the Practical Arts by Herodotus. — How Slavery has 
degraded Labor. — How Manual Training is to dignify it. 

As we enter the Foiincling Laboratory we recall Locke's 
apothegm: "He who first made known the use of that 
contemptible mineral [iron] may be trnly styled the fa- 
ther of arts and the author of plenty." We reflect, too, 
that the mineral that has given its name to an age of the 
world — our age — is worthy of careful study. 

The Founding Laboratory, like all the laboratories of 
the school, is designed for twenty-four students. There 
are twenty-four moulding-benches, combined with troughs 
for sand, and a cupola furnace where from five hundred 
to one thousand pounds of iron may be melted. 

The students we lately parted from in the Wood-turn- 
ing Laboratory are here. Their training has been confined 
to manipulations in wood ; they are now to be made ac- 
quainted with iron — iron in considerable masses. They 
should know something, in outline, of the history of the 
king of metals in the Founding Laboratory, The instruct- 
or speaks familiarly to them, somewhat as follows : 



46 MANUAL TRAINING. 

The art of tlie founder is fundamental in its nature. 
The arts of founding and forging are, indeed, the essen- 
tial preliminary steps which lead to the finer manipula- 
tions entering into all metal constructions. Whether 
forging preceded founding or founding forging is imma- 
terial ; both arts are as old as recorded history — much 
older indeed. Moulding, which is the first step in the 
founder's art, should be among the oldest of human dis- 
coveries, since man had only to take in his hand a lump 
of moist clay to receive ocular evidence of his power to 
give it any desired form. 

Moulding for casting is closely allied to the potter's 
art. The potter selects a clay suitable for the vessel he 
desires to mould, and the founder pre]3ares a composition 
of sand and loam of the proper consistency to serve as a 
matrix for the vessel he desires to cast. 

The art of founding was doubtless first applied to 
bronze. The ruins of Egypt and Greece abound in the 
remains of bronze castings, an analysis of which reveals 
about the same relative proportions of tin and copper 
in use now for the best qualities of statuary bronze. The 
bronze castings of the Assyrians show a high degree of 
art. Many specimens of this fine work of the Assyrian 
founder have been rescued from the ruins of long-buried 
Nineveh — buried so long that Xenophon and his ten 
thousand Greeks marched over its site more than two 
thousand years ago without making any sign of a knowl- 
edge of its existence, and Alexander fought a great bat- 
tle in its neighborhood in apparent ignorance of the fact 
that he trod on classic ground. But there, delving be- 
neath the rubbish and decayed vegetation of four thou- 
sand years or more, Layard found great treasures of art 
in the palaces of Sennacherib and other Assyrian mon- 



THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 47 

archs — ^vases, jars, bronzes, glass-bottles, carved ivory and 
mother-of-pearl ornaments, engraved gems, bells, dishes, 
and ear-rings of exquisite workmanship, besides arms and 
a variety of tools of the practical arts. 

In Greece, in the time of Praxiteles, bronze vras 
moulded into forms of rare beauty and grandeur. The 
colossal statue of Apollo at E-hodes affords an example 
of the magnitude of the Greek castings. It was cast in 
several parts, and was over one hundred feet high. 
About fifty years after its erection it was destroyed by 
an earthquake. Its fragments lay on the ground where 
it fell, nearly a thousand years ; but when the Saracens 
gathered them together and sold them, there was a suffi- 
cient quantity to load a caravan consisting of nine hun- 
dred camels. One of the finest existing specimens of 
ancient bronze casting is that of a statue of Mercury dis- 
covered at Ilerculaneum, and now to be seen in the mu- 
seum at IN^aples. 

During the era of church bells the founder exercised 
his art in casting bells of huge dimensions. Early in the 
fifteenth century a bell weighing about fifty tons was 
cast at Pekin, China. This bell still exists, is fourteen 
and a half feet in height and thirteen feet in diameter. 
But the greatest bell-founding feat was, however, that of 
1733, in casting the bell of Moscow. This bell is nineteen 
feet three inches in height and sixty feet nine inches in 
circumference, and weighs 443,772 pounds. The value of 
the metal entering into its construction is estimated at 
$300,000. It long lay in a pit in the midst of the Krem- 
lin, but Czar Nicholas caused it to be raised, mounted 
upon a granite pedestal, and converted into a chapel. 
The methods of casting employed by the founder of 
this king of bells arc not known. The bell has outlived 



48 MANUAL TRAINING. 

the Works where it was cast. The melting and handling 
of two hunjired and twenty tons of bronze metal certain- 
ly required appointments, mechanical and otherwise, of 
the most stupendous character ; and the existence of such 
Works presupposes an intimate acquaintance with the 
most minute details of the founder's art, since the natu- 
ral order of development is from the less to the greater. 
That is to say, the founder who could manipulate scores 
of tons of metal in a single great casting could doubtless 
manipulate a few pounds of metal ; or, the founder who 
could cast a bell weighing two hundred and twenty tons, 
could cast pots and kettles and hundreds of other little 
useful things. What we hope to do in this school Found- 
ing Laboratory is to gain a correct conception of great 
things by making ourselves thoroughly familiar with 
many forms of little things in moulding and casting. 

The lesson of the day is the moulding and casting of a 
plain pulley. In the Pattern Laboratory each student has 
already executed a pattern of the pulley to be cast, and 
the pattern lies before him on his moulding-bench. ISTow 
the instructor, at the most conspicuous bench in tlie 
room, proceeds to execute the first part of the lesson, 
which consists of moulding. Taking from the trough a 
handful of sand, he explains that it is only by the use of 
sand possessing certain projDerties, as a degree of moist- 
ure, but not enough to vaporize when the metal is poured 
in, and a small admixture of clay, but not enough to 
make of the compound a loam, that the mould can be 
saved from ruin through vaporization, and, at the same 
time, given the essential quality of adhesiveness or plas- 
ticity. In the course of this explanation he remarks 
that the sand used in some parts of the mould is mixed 
with pulverized bituminous coal, coke, or plumbago, in 



THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 51 

order to give a smoother surface. ISTow he takes tlie 
"flask" — a woodea apparatus containing the sand in 
which the mould is made — and explains its construction 
and use. From this point — the sifting of facing sand on 
the turn-over board, to the final one of replacing the cope 
and securing it with keys or clamps — every step of the 
process is carefully gone through with and explained. 

Meantime, before the moulding lesson has proceeded 
far, a fire is kindled in the furnace and it is " charged ;" 
that is to say, filled with alternate layers of coal and pig- 
iron, with occasional fluxes of limestone. During the 
process of charging the furnace the instructor explains 
the principle of its construction, and shows how it oper- 
ates. At every subsequent rest in moulding the students 
surround the furnace to witness the progress of the flre, 
the position of the layers of coal, and the state of com- 
bustion. They pass the furnace in procession, and each 
peeps in through the isinglass windows upon the glow- 
ing fire, asks a question, or a dozen questions, perhaps, 
and gives place to the next student in line. In the in- 
tervals of these visits to the furnace the work of mak- 
ing twenty -four moulds goes on under the eye of the 
instructor, the students explaining each step in advance. 
He is omnipresent, answering a question here, prevent- 
ing a fatal mistake there, cheering, inspiring, and guiding 
the whole class, but never insisting upon a slavish ad- 
herence to strict identity in processes. And it is to be 
noted that there is in moulding more latitude for inde- 
pendence than in almost any other mechanical manipu- 
lation. Certain essentials there are, of course, but these 
being secured, the student may exercise his ingenuity in 
the execution of many minor details. That there is con- 
siderable individuality in the class may be seen by obser- 



53 MANUAL TRAINING. 

vation of the different methods employed by the several 
young moulders to compass various details of the same 
general process. 

The moulds are nearly completed. The instructor 
assists a student who is found to be a little behind in his 
work, and interposes a warning against haste at the criti- 
cal moment. Within the space of a period of ten min- 
utes the twenty- four patterns are " tapped," loosened, 
and lifted from their beds, imperfections are carefully 
repaired with the trowel, or some other tool, channels to 
the pouring holes are cut in the surfaces, the pieces re- 
maining in the copes are removed, the particles of loose 
sand are blown from the surfaces of the moulds, and the 
twenty-four copes are replaced, and secured with keys or 
clamps. 

A final visit is now made to the furnace. The fusion 
is found to be complete; the "pigs" are converted into 
a molten pool. It only remains to pour the hot metal 
into the moulds. The instructor seizes an iron ladle lined 
with clay, holds it under the spout of the furnace reser- 
voir until it is nearly filled with the glowing fluid, lifts 
and carries it carefully across the room, and pours the 
contents into a mould. Then the students, in squads, 
after having been cautioned as to the deadly nature of 
the molten mass they are to handle, follow the example 
of their instructor. At this moment the laboratory ap- 
peals powerfully to the imagination. The picture it pre- 
sents is weird in the extreme. From the open furnace 
door a stream of crimson light floods the room. The 
students wear paper -caps and are bare-armed ; their faces 
glow in the reflected glare of the furnace-fire; they march 
up to the furnace one by one, each receiving a ladleful 
of steaming hot metal, and countermarch to their benches. 



THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 55 

where they pour the contents of their ladles into the 
moulds. 

Still holding his empty ladle in his hand, the instruct- 
or watches the progress of the lesson with keen interest 
until the last stream of metal has found its way into 
the throat of the last mould. He recalls the story of 
Vulcan, the God of Fire, and of all the arts and indus- 
tries dependent upon it, and wonders why he was not 
depicted pouring tons of molten metal in the foundery 
rather than sledge in hand at the forge. Then he regards 
the class with a benignant expression of pride, begs for 
silence, and says, " Thus were the hundred brazen gates 
of ancient Babylon cast long before tlie beginning of 
the Christian era." Herodotus did not think to tell us 
much of the state of the useful arts in the early time of 
which he wrote, but the brazen gates attracted his atten- 
tion, and he described them : " At the end of each street 
a little gate is found in the wall along the river-side, in 
number equal to the streets, and they are all made of 
brass, and lead down to the edge of the river." Could 
Herodotus have foreseen what a deep interest his readers 
of this remote time would take in the history of the use- 
ful arts, he would have written less about the walls, pal- 
aces, and temples of Babylon, and more about the artif- 
icers. He would have begged admission to the forges 
and founderies of the city ; he would have visited the 
Assyrian founder at his Avork, questioned him about his 
processes, and set down his answers v/ith painstaking 
care. Then he would have sought an introduction to 
the smithy, and from the grimy forger learned what he 
could tell of ]iis art and of kindred arts. So the father 
of history might have made an enduring record of the 
real tilings which throughout all time have contributed 



56 MANUAL TRAINING. 

to the advancement of the human race, rather than of 
events growing out of the ambitions and passions of men 
— the rise and fall of kingdoms and emjDires, the varying 
fortune of battle, the treacheries, crimes, and brutalities 
of rulers, and the cringing submission of millions of sub- 
jects. But, alas, the founders and smiths, and all the 
other cunning artificers of the. vast empire of Syria, were 
slaves ! and through their ancestry for unnumbered gen- 
erations the stigma of slavery had attached to labor. 
Ay, on the bare backs of the founders of Babylon's bra- 
zen gates the popular scorn of labor had doubtless left its 
livid brand. 

With these pariahs of Assyrian society, these outcasts 
of the social circle, the great Greek historian could not 
even speak. Descended from a long line of noble Hali- 
carnassian families, Herodotus felt all the prejudices of 
the hereditary aristocracy of his country. Hence he di- 
lates upon the wonders of Babylon, but is silent as to its 
architects and artisans. He describes with great minute- 
ness of detail the tower of Jupiter Belus, but gives no 
hint of the name of its designer and builder. He de- 
clares that Babylon was adorned in a manner surpass- 
ing any city of the time, but in regard to the artificers 
through whose ingenuity and skill such pleasing effects 
were produced he gives no sign. 

The silence of Herodotus on the subject of the use- 
ful arts in Babylon does not indicate a want of appreci- 
ation of their value, but merely shows contempt of the 
Assyrian artisan, and this not because he was an artisan, 
but because he was a slave. The story of Solon and 
Croesus, which antedates Herodotus, whether true or a 
myth, shows that iron and artisanship were appreciated 
by both Greeks and barbarians. When Croesus had 



THE FOUNDING LABORATORY. 57 

exhibited to the Greek sage his vast hoard of treasures, 
Solon said, " If another comes that hath better iron than 
you he will be master of all this gold." Here is a recog- 
nition of the immense value of the arts of smelting and 
forging, coupled with a contemptuous silence regarding 
as well the smelter and the smith as the rank and file 
of the armies who should wield the swords and spears 
drawn bj science from the recesses of the earth, and by 
art wrought and tempered at the forge. Through all 
the early ages the brand and scorn of slavery adhered to 
labor, while the arts, the products of labor, were often 
deified. Thus the Scythian, who from a grinning skull 
drank the warm blood of his captive, regarded with super- 
stitious awe as a god the iron sword with which he cut 
off his captive's head. 

It was only with the revival of learning, after the in- 
tellectual and moral gloom of the Dark Ages, that labor 
began slowly to lift its bowed head and assert itself. 
But it does not yet stand erect. It still stoops as if in 
the presence of a master. Every now and then it winces 
and cringes as if the sound of the descendiug lash smote 
its ear. It remains for you, students in this school of 
the arts — all the arts that make mankind good and great 
— it remains for you to brush away from the tear-stained 
face of labor all the shadows accumulated there through 
all the dead ages of oppression and slavery. It remains 
for you to make labor bold by making it intelligent. It 
remains for you to dignify and ennoble labor by bestow- 
ing upon it the ripest scientific and artistic culture, and 
devoting to its service the best energies of body and 
mind. 



58 MANUAL TRAINING. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE FORGING LABORATORY. 

Twenty-four manly-looking Boys with Sledge-hammer in Hand — 
their Muscle and Brawn. — The Pride of Conscious Strength. — 
The Story of the Origin of an Empire.— The Greater Empire of 
Mechanics. — The Smelter and the Smith the Bulwark of the Brit- 
ish Government.— Coal— its Modern Aspects; its Early History; 
Superstition regarding its Use. — Dud. Dudley utilizes "Pit-coal" 
for Smelting— the Story of his Struggles ; his Imprisonment and 
Death. — The English People import their Pots and Kettles.— ■" The 
Blast is on and the Forge Fire sings." — The Lesson, first on the 
Black-board, then in Red-hot Iron on the Anvil. — Striking out the 
Anvil Chorus — the Sparks fly whizzing through the Air. — The 
Mythological History of Iron.— The Smith in Feudal Times— His 
Versatility. — History of Damascus Steel. — We should reverence 
the early Inventors. — The Useful Arts finer than the Fine Arts. — 
The Ancient Smelter and Smith, and the Students in the Manual 
Training School. 

This is the Forging Laboratory. It is only a few steps 
from the laboratory for founding, where we lately saw 
twenty-four students taking off their leather aprons after 
a two hours' lesson in moulding and casting. Here we 
find, also, twenty-four students, but not the twenty-four 
we saw in the laboratory for founding. This class is 
more advanced. The boys are a trifle taller ; they show 
more muscle, more strength, and bear themselves with a 
still more confident air. 

In the Forging Laboratory there are twenty-four forges 
with all essential accessaries, as anvils, tubs, and sets of 
ordinary hand-tools. 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 61 

The students, with coats off and sleeves rolled above 
their elbows, in pairs, as smith and heli3er, stand, sledge 
and tongs in hand, at twelve of tlie forges. They are 
manly-looking boys. Their feet are firmly planted, their 
bodies erect, their heads thrown a little back. Their 
arras show brawn ; the muscles stand out in relief from 
the solid flesh. Their faces express the pride of con- 
scious strength, and their eyes show animation. 

As we regard the class with a sympathetic thrill of 
satisfaction, the story of the origin of the Turkish Em- 
pire is recalled : " A race of slaves, living in the mount- 
ain regions of Asia, are employed by a powerful Khan 
to forge weapons for his use in war. A bold chief j)er- 
suades them to use the weapons forged for a master to 
secure their own deliverance. For centuries after they 
had thus conquered their freedom, the Turkish people 
celebrated their liberation by an annual ceremony in 
which a piece of iron was heated in the fire, and a smith's 
hammer successively handled by the prince and his no- 
bles." 

The greatest empire in the world to-day is the em- 
pire of the art of mechanism, and its most potent instru- 
ment is iron. Once the perpetuity of governments de- 
pended upon the mere possession of the dingy ore. 
When Elizabeth came to the throne, in the middle of 
the sixteenth century, England w^as almost defenceless, 
owing to the short supply of iron. Spain, much better 
equipped, hence relied confidently upon her ability to 
subdue tlie English. But the Yirgin Queen, compre- 
hending tlie nature of the crisis, im^^orted iron from 
Sweden and encouraged the Sussex forges, and the Span- 
ish Armada was defeated. Thus the smelter and tlie 
smitli became tlie bulwark of the British ffovcrnment. 



62 MANUAL TRAINING. 

But at an earlier period the fraternity of smiths gave 
direction to the course of empire. The secret of the 
easy conquest of Britain by the I^ormans was their supe- 
rior armor. They were clad in steel, and their horses 
were shod with iron. The chief farrier of William be- 
came an earl ; and he was proud of his origin, for his coat 
of arms bore six horseshoes. 

Iron and civilization are terms of equivalent import. 
Iron is king, and the smelter and smith are his chief 
ministers. It is not known when, by whom, or how the 
art of smelting iron was discovered. As well ask by 
whom and how fire was discovered? These are secrets 
of the early morning of human life — of that time when 
man made no record of his struggles. 

In lieu of history the instructor resorts to tradition, 
repeating the following legend : " While men were pa- 
tiently rubbing sticks to point them into arrows, a spark 
leapt forth and ignited the wood-dust which had been 
scraped from the sticks, and so fire was found." 

Now the " helper " looks to his " blast " with keen in- 
terest ; for the management of the forge-fire is one of 
the niceties of the smith's art. He stirs the fire a little 
impatiently. The instructor heeds the act, but not the 
movement of impatience. On the contrary he seizes the 
occasion to bring up the subject of coal. Question fol- 
lows question in rapid succession, and the answers are 
prompt and satisfactory, touching all modern aspects of 
the subject, namely, the magnitude of the annual "out- 
put," the localities of heaviest production, the cost of 
mining ; the uses, respectively, to whicli different qual- 
ities are applied, demand and supply, and market value 
or price. Here the instructor remarks that the mining, 
transportation, and sale of coal are conducted in this coun- 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 63 

tiy by a number of large corporations, with, an aggregate 
caj)italization and bonded indebtedness of six or seven 
hundred million dollars, and that through combinations 
between these corporations the price is often arbitra- 
rily advanced. " But," he concludes, " the discussion of 
that branch of the subject belongs more properly to the 
class in political economy." 

The history of coal in its relation to iron smelting and 
manufacture forms a curious chapter in the vicissitudes 
of the useful arts. One hundred and fifty years ago 
not only all the smith's fires but the smelter's fires were 
kept up with charcoal. The forests of England were 
literally swept away, like chaff before the wind, to fee^ 
the yawning mouths of the iron mills. To make a ton 
of iron required the consumption of hundreds of cords 
of wood. To save the timber restrictive legislation was 
adopted, and the mills were gradually closed for want of 
fuel, until, in 1788, there was not one left in Sussex, and 
only a small number in the kingdom. Meantime the Eng- 
lish iron 6ui)25ly came from Sweden, Spain, and Germany. 
England seemed to be following in the footsteps of the 
Koman Empire. The Romans accomplished in iron 
smelting and forging just what might be expected of 
a warlike people. They required iron for arms and 
armor, and in smelting skimmed thq surface. This is 
proven by the cinder lieaps, rich in ore, which they left 
in Britain. Archaeologists trace the decline of Rome in 
her monuments, which show a steady deterioration in the 
soldier's equipment. Alison attributes this decline to 
tlie exhaustion of her gold and silver mines. A far more 
plausible conjecture is found in the waste of timber in 
fuel for smelting purposes, and the resulting failure of 
the iron sujiply. 



64 MANUAL TRAINING. 

The fall of the Eoman Empire may be accounted for 
by her neglect of the useful arts. The nation that 
converts all her iron into swords and spears shall surely 
perish. Had the city of Seven Hills possessed seven 
men of mechanical genius like "Watt, Stephenson, Mauds- 
lay, Clement, Whitney, Neilson, and N'asmyth, her fall 
might have been averted, or if not averted, it need not 
have involved the practical extinction of civilization, thus 
imposing upon mankind the shame of the Dark Ages. 

At the beginning of the seventeenth century there was 
much ignorant prejudice against the use of mineral coal. 
It was believed to be injurious to health. All sorts of dis- 
eases were attributed to its supposed malignant influence, 
and at one time to burn it in dwellings was made a penal 
offence. But this prejudice did not extend to its use in 
smelting iron, and whatever there w^as of inventive gen- 
ius was devoted to a solution of the problem of its adapt- 
ation to such purposes. Mr. Samuel Smiles has collected 
the names of the most prominent of these Dutch and 
German mechanics, namely, Sturtevant, Eovenzon, Jor- 
dens, Francke, and Sir Philibert Yernatt, and given each 
a niche in the temple of fame. Some of them had a true 
conce23tion of the required processes, but they all failed 
to render the application practically available. 

It remained for Dud. Dudley to succeed in making a 
thoroughly practical application of mineral coal to iron- 
smelting purposes, and then curiously enough to fail of 
success in introducing it into general use. Dudley was 
born in 1599, in an iron-manufacturing district. His fa- 
ther owned iron-works near the town of Dudley, which 
was a collection of forges and workshops where " nails, 
horseshoes, keys, locks, and common agricultural tools " 
were made. Brought up in the neighborhood of " twen- 



THE FORGING LABOKATORY. 65 

tj thousand smitlis and workers in iron," young Dudley 
"attained considerable knowledge of the various proc- 
esses of manufacture." At twenty years of age he was 
taken from college and placed in charge of a furnace and 
two forges in Worcestershire, where there was a scarcity 
of wood but an abundance of mineral coal. He began 
immediately to experiment, with a view to the substitu- 
tion of the latter for the former, and in a year succeed- 
ed in demonstrating " the practicability of smelting iron 
with fuel made from pit-coal, whicli so many before him 
had tried in vain." But the charcoal iron-masters com- 
bined to resist the new method because it cheapened the 
product. They instigated mobs to destroy Dudley's fur- 
naces one after another, as soon as they were complet- 
ed, harassed him with lawsuits, and finally beggared and 
drove him to prison. Then they tried to wring his se- 
cret from him. To this attempt Cromwell, who was in- 
terested in furnaces in the Forest of Dean, is said to have 
been a party. But all these efforts failed, and Dudley 
died in 168^ carrying his secret with him to the grave, 
and there the secret slumbered nearly one hundred years. 

The story of Dud. Dudley, as told by Mr. Smiles in his 
"Iron-workers and Tool-makers," is one of surpassing 
interest. It is worthy the careful perusal not only of 
every school-boy but of the philosophic student in search 
of the lessons of history, for it affords fresh evidence of 
the truth of the proposition that the progress of civiliza- 
tion depends upon progress in invention and discovery. 

Under the influence of ignorance, prejudice, and super- 
stition the iron industry of England continued to decline 
until the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the 
British people imported their pots and kettles. Fifty 
years later, at the Coalbrookd-ale iron-works in Shropshire, 

4 



66 MANUAL TRAINING. 

when the furnaces had consumed all the wood in the 
neighborhood and a fuel famine was imminent, smelting 
willi mineral coal was successfully resumed, and in 1766 
two workmen of the " works " — the brothers Cranege — in- 
vented the reverberatory furnace, which added immense- 
ly to the application of coal to smelting purposes. 

But while we are discussing the history of coal we are 
consuming coal to little purpose, for the blast is on and 
the furnace tires glow like miniature volcanic craters. 
Let us to work. Before the black-board, chalk in hand, 
the instructor stands and gives out the lesson. Pie pre- 
sents it in the form of drawings, complete and in detail. 
It may involve only the single process of " drawing," or 
it may involve several processes, as " drawing," " bend- 
ing," and " welding." The first sketch, for example, rep- 
resents a flat bar of iron, the counterpart of the bars rest- 
ing against the several forges. The second sketch shows 
the bar wrought into the form of a cylinder. The third 
sketch shows it "drawn "or lengthened, and hence re- 
duced in size. The fourth sketch presents two rods the 
united lengths of which equal the length of the original 
rod. The fifth sketch represents the two rods " bent " 
into the form of chain-links, and a sub-sketch shows the 
proper shape of the ends of the links for "welding." 
The sixth sketch shows the two links joined and welded. 

The black-board illustrations may be omitted if the 
school is provided with a complete set of samples. The 
school of mechanic arts of the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology has a hundred samples representing the suc- 
cessive steps in blacksmithing manipulation, including 
welding, and the welding samples consist of two parts, 
the first representing the details of the piece prepared 
for welding, and the second the welded piece. These 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 69 

samples are part of a collection of three hundred and 
twenty pieces of exquisite workmanship, covering every 
department of a complete manual training course, pre- 
sented to the Institute in 1877 by the Emperor of Russia. 

The black-board illustrations or the samples having 
been exhibited and explained as clearly as is possible in 
words, the instructor takes liis j)lace at one of the forges, 
and, surrounded by the class, goes through with the suc- 
cessive steps of any manipulation contained in the lesson 
which has not been actually wrought out in some pre- 
vious lesson. 

If the manipulation is a simple one the silence is only 
broken by the sound of the blast ani the stroke of the 
hammer — the students understand every turn of the iron 
and every blow struck by the instructor — but if the 
mani23ulation is complicated, involving a fresh principle, 
the instructor is saluted by a volley of questions, and he 
often pauses to answer them. It is the time for ques- 
tions ; the more questions now, the fewer questions when 
all the blasts shall be on, and all the sledges flying through 
the air and making music on the anvils. A quest-ion now 
may lead to the enlightenment of twenty-four students ; a 
question later is sure to cost the time of twenty-four stu- 
dents, and the answer to it may enlighten only one student. 

At last the instructor drops the sledge, straightens up 
to his full height, and wipes the sweat from his brow. 
If the students respect the instructor they will respect 
labor, and they will respect the instructor if he is worthy 
of respect. 

N"ow the school-room is a smithy and yet it is not. It 
is neither very hot nor very smoky, for there is an ex- 
haust fan in operation which vitalizes the circulation. 
But the atmosphere resounds with the clangorous strokes 



70 MANUAL TRAINING. 

of a dozen sledges, mingled with the sullen roar of as 
many forge -fires; and there are traces of soot on the 
walls, and pale smoke-wreaths creep along the ceilings, 
and hide in corners, and circle about columns in fantastic 
shapes. It is a smithy, but a smithy adapted, by its ex- 
traordinary neatness, to the manufacture of watch-springs, 
palate-arbors, and Damascus blades. 

The faces of the students are aglow with the flush of 
health-giving exercise ; their brows are " wet with honest 
sweat," their heart -beats are full and strong, and the 
crimson life-currents surge hotly through every vein to 
their very finger-tips. They strike out the anvil chorus 
in all the keys and in every measure of the scale, and 
the burning sparks fly whizzing through the air. 

At a sign from the instructor there is a pause. The 
students stand at ease and the work is inspected. This 
is the time for more questions if any student is in doubt ; 
and the rest of five minutes afEords opportunity for a 
brief lecture on the subject of the early history of the 
fraternity of smiths. 

Mythology gives the highest place in its pantheon to 
Yulcan, the God of Fire. For notwithstanding he is rep- 
resented as bearded, covered with dust and soot, blowing 
the fires of his forges and surrounded by his chief minis- 
ters, the Cyclops, he is given Venus to wife and made the 
father of Cupid. Among the Scythians the iron sword 
was a god. When Jerusalem was taken by the Baby- 
lonians they made captives of all the smiths and other 
craftsmen of the city — a more grievous act than the 
thousand million dollar tribute levied upon France by 
Germany at the close of the war of 1870. For to be de- 
prived of the use of iron is to be relegated to a state of 
barbarism. 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 71 

The vulgar accounted for the keenness of tlie first 
sword-blades on the score of magic, and the praises of 
the smiths who forged were sung with the chiefs of chiv- 
alry who wielded them. So highly M^as this mysterious 
power regarded by Tancred, the crusader, that in return 
for the present of King Arthur's sword, Excalibar, by 
Richard I., he paid for it with " four great ships and fif- 
teen galleys." 

The smith was a mighty man in England in the early 
time. " In the royal court of Wales he sat in the great 
hall with the king and queen, and was entitled to a 
draught of every kind of liquor served." His person 
was sacred ; his calling placed him above the law. He 
was necessary to the feudal state; he forged swords 
" on the temper of which life, honor, and victory in bat- 
tle depended." The smith, after the ISTorman invasion, 
gained in importance in England. He was the chief 
man of the village, its oracle, and the most cunning work- 
man of the time. His name descended to more families 
than that of any other profession — for the origm of the 
name Smith is the hot, dusty, smoky smithy, and how- 
ever it may be disguised in the spelling, it is entitled to 
the proud distinction which its representatives sometimes 
seek to conceal. 

Mr. Smiles draws the following graphic picture of the 
versatility of the smith of the Middle Ages : 

" The smith's tools were of many sorts, but the chief 
were his hammer, pincers, chisel, tongs, and anvil. It is 
astonishing what a variety of articles he turned out of 
his smithy by the help of these rude implements. In 
the tooling, chasing, and consummate knowledge of the 
capabilities of iron he greatly surpassed the modern 
workman. The numerous exquisite specimens of his 



72 MANUAL TRAINING. 

handicraft which exist in our old gate-ways, church doors, 
altar railings, and ornamented dogs and andirons, still 
serve as types for continual reproduction. He was, in- 
deed, the most ' cunning workman ' of his time. But be- 
sides all this he was an engineer. If a road had to be 
made, or a stream embanked, or a trench dug, he was in- 
variably called upon to provide the tools, and often to 
direct the work. He was also the military engineer of 
his day, and as late as the reign of Edward III. we find 
the king repeatedly sending for smiths from the Forest 
of Dean to act as engineers for the royal army at the 
siege of Berwick." 

But the most signal triumph of the art, both of the 
smelter and the smith, is found in the famous swords of 
Damascus, whose edge and temper were so keen and per- 
fect that they w^ould sever a gauze veil floating in the 
air, or crash through bones and helmets without sustain- 
ing injury. These Damascus blades, long renowned in 
the East, but first encountered by Europeans during the 
crusades, in the hands of the followers of Mahomet, were 
made of Indian steel or " wootz." This steel, produced 
in the form of little cakes weighing about two pounds 
each, in the neighborhood of the city of Golconda, in 
Hiudostan, was transported on the backs of camels two 
thousand miles to the city of Damascus, and there con- 
verted into swords, sabres, and scimitars. 

This smith's work has never been excelled, if equalled. 
Millions of dollars have been expended in efforts to pro- 
duce the equal of Indian steel. Among the investigators 
of the subject the most noted was a Eussian general, 
Anossoff, who died in 1851. His experiments were of 
a very elaborate and exhaustive character. They occu- 
pied a lifetime, and resulted in the establishment of 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 73 

works in tlie Ural Mountains, on the Siberian border, for 
tlie production of Damascus steel by a process of liis 
own invention. After General Anossoff's death the qual- 
ity of the steel produced at his works deteriorated. 

We should treat with reverence these obscure hints of 
the triumplis of the ancients in certain departments of 
art as suggestive of like great achievements in other di- 
rections, for without a knowledge of types they could 
neither teacli the many what the few knew, nor preserve 
what they had acquired for the instruction of future 
ages. All art is the j)roduct of a sequential series of 
ideas, eacli idea containing the germ of the next ; hence 
the preservation of each idea is essential to progress. 
The art of ^Drinting alone enables man to preserve such a 
record. It follows presunrptively that the art of print- 
ing constitutes the predominant feature of difference 
between the civilization of the moderns and that of the 
ancients. And it is important to observe that the art of 
printing is far more necessary to progress in the useful 
arts than in the so-called fine arts. The ancient temples 
with their sculptured splendors — the Parthenon, the Ju- 
piter Olympius, and scores of others — remained long to 
testify to the genius of Phidias, Praxiteles, and their gift- 
ed colleagues of the chisel. These souvenirs of Greek 
genius still serve as models for the architect and the 
sculptor. It needs no chronicle to prove that they mark 
the culmination of the fine arts. If the moderns have 
failed to excel, or even equal them, it is not because their 
conception, design, or construction involved occult proc- 
esses. It is rather because there is a limit to the devel- 
opment of the so-called fine arts, and that limit in archi- 
tecture and sculpture was reached in Greece more than 
two thousand years ago. 



74 MANUAL TRAINING. 

But with the Damascus blade, which typifies the use- 
ful arts, it is entirely different. It, too, is in itself a tri- 
umph of genius not less pronounced than the Athena of 
Phidias. But above and beyond this the arts of smelt- 
ing and forging are so subtile as almost to elude the 
grasp of analysis. I^ot only the method of the fabrica- 
tion of the Damascus blade but the processes involved 
in the production of the steel entering into its compo- 
sition — all these are shrouded in imjDenetrable mystery. 
It follows that the useful arts are finer than the so- 
called fine arts. Their processes are more intricate, and 
hence more difiicult of camprehension. To a solution 
of the questions presented in the course of their study 
an extended acquaintance with the sciences is essential. 
The highest departments of the fine arts, so-called, re- 
quire only a study of the features, figure, and character 
of man, and of certain visible forms of nature, while 
the useful arts make incessant demands upon the re- 
sources of natural philosophy. The chemist toils in his 
laboratory, and the botanist and the geologist explore 
forest, field, and mine in search of new truths, with the 
single purpose of enlarging the sphere of the useful arts, 
and so of ministering more effectively to the ever in- 
creasing needs of man. Hence there can be no limit to 
the development of the useful arts except the limit to be 
found in the exhaustion of the forces of nature. 

We should, then, venerate the artisan rather than the 
artist. Let ns invoke the shade of the dusky Indian 
smelter. See him in the dark recesses of the forest, 
bending in rapt attention over his furnace, or holding 
aloft a little lump of his matchless steel. Alas, he is 
dumb ! His secret perished with him. But the Indian 
smelter and the Damascus smith are kin to all the invent- 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 75 

ors and discoverers of all the ages. Across continents 
and seas, over trackless wastes of history — epochs during 
which ignorance and snjDerstition prevailed and the intel- 
lect of man slumbered — the ancient smelter and the 
ancient smith extend their shadowy hands to the stu- 
dents in this school of the nineteenth century — extend 
'them in token of the fellowship of a common struggle 
and a common hope of triumph — the struggle after 
truth, and the hope of the triumph of industry. 

The instructor raps on the black-board, and the school- 
room is at once transformed into a smithy. Again the 
forge-fires roar, and again the anvils resound under the 
stroke of the hammer. For half an hour the lesson soes 
on, and then comes the wind-up, and the several tests 
of excellence are applied to the completed task of each 
student. Form, dimensions, finish — these are the tests. 
The instructor marks the several pieces of work, makes a 
record of the result, reads the record, and is on the point 
of dismissing the class when an idea occurs to his mind 
and he enjoins silence. Taking in his hand a heavy 
sledge, and resting it on the anvil before him, he says, 
" This is a baby-hammer, and all the forging we do here 
is baby-forging. I hope soon to have an opportunity to 
take you to the great works of Mr. Crane, in this city, 
and there show you a steam-hammer which weighs a ton 
striking fifty to one hundred blows a minute — blows, too, 
that shame the fabled power of Vulcan, the God of Fire. 
At Pittsburg, Pa., there is an anvil of 150 tons weight 
which serves for forging with a 15-ton hammer. Bat 
the monster steam-hammer is to be found in Krupp's cast- 
steel works at Essen, Germany. The hammer-head is 12 
feet long, 5^ feet wide, 4 feet thick, weighs 50 tons, and 
has a stroke of 9 feet. The depth of the foundation 

4* 



76 MANUAL TRAINING. 

is 100 feet, consisting of three parts, masonry, timber, 
and iron, bolted together. Four cranes, each capable of 
bearing 200 tons, serve the hammer with material." 

The steam-hammer was invented in 1837 by James 
ITasmyth, of England, in response to a demand for a 
hammer that would forge a steamship paddle-shaft of 
unprecedented size. The nature of the emergency being 
presented to his mind, Mr. Nasmyth conceived the idea 
of the steam-hammer instantaneously, as it were, and at 
once proceeded to sketch the child of his brain on paper. 
He was too poor to defray the cost of patenting his in- 
vention ; nor was he able to procure the necessary funds 
for that purpose until he had seen in France a hammer 
made from his own original sketch in operation. 

The steam-hammer came rapidly into use, superseding 
all others of the ponderous sort, increasing the quantity 
of products and reducing the cost of manufacture by 
fifty per cent. It was through the steam-hammer only 
that the fabrication of the immense wrought-iron ord- 
nance and the huge plates for covering ships- of -war of 
modern times became possible. In the hands of the 
giant, steam, Mr. N^asmyth's hammer, even if it -weigh 
fifty tons, is susceptible of more accurate strokes than 
the tack-hammer in the hands of the upholsterer, or the 
sledge in the hands of the most skilled blacksmith. It 
crushes tons of iron into a shapeless mass at one blow, 
and at the next drives a tack, or cracks an egg-shell in an 
egg-cup without injuring the cup. 

Mr. Nasmyth, in 1845, applied the steam-hammer prin- 
ciple to the pile-driver. With this wonderful machine 
the " driving - block," Aveighing several tons, descends 
eighty times a minute on the head of the pile, sending 
it home with almost incredible rapidity. The saving of 



THE FORGING LABORATORY. 77 

time as compared witli tlie old method is in the ratio of 
1 to 1800 ; that is, a pile can be driven in four minutes 
that before required twelve hours. 

The course in the Forging Laboratory extends from the 
making and care of forge-fires to case-hardening iron and 
hardening and tempering steel ; and competent and ex- 
perienced instructors declare that the student in the edu- 
cational smithy gains as much skill in a day as the smith's 
apprentice gains in a year in the ordinary shop. 



78 MANUAL TKAINING. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 

TheFoundery and Smithy are Ancient, the Machine-tool Shop is Mod- 
ern. — The Giant, Steam, reduced to Servitude.— The Iron Lines of 
Progress — They converge in the Shop ; its triumphs from the Watch- 
spring to the Locomotive. — The Applications of Iron in Art is the 
Subject of Subjects. — The Story of Invention is the History of 
Civilization. — The Machine-maker and the Tool-maker are the best 
Friends of Man. — Watt's Great Conception waited for Automatic 
Tools ; their Accurac}^ — The Hand-made and the Machine-made 
Watch. — The Elgin (Illinois) Watch Factory. — The Interdepen- 
dence of the Arts. — The Making of a Suit of Clothes. — The Ante- 
room of the Machine-tool Laboratory. — Chipping and Filing. — The 
File-cutter.— The Poverty of Words as compared with Things. — 
The Graduating Project. — The Vision of the Instructor. 

The transition from tlie laboratories for founding and 
forging to the Machine-tool Laboratory symbolizes a 
mighty revolution in the practical arts — a revolution so 
stupendous as to defy description, and so far-reaching as 
to appall the spirit of prophecy. The foundery and the 
smithy date back to the dawn of history ; the machine- 
tool shop is a creation of yesterday. About the early 
manipulations of iron mythology wove a web of fancy : 
Yulcan forged Jove's thunderbolts, the iron sword of 
the savage was a god, and even far down the course of 
time, late in the Middle Ages, Tancred, the crusader, paid 
an almost fabulous sum for King Arthur's famous sword 
Excalibar — but the modern machine-tool shop is a huge 
iron automaton, without sentiment, and possessing no 
poetry except the rhythmic harmony of motion. In this 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 81 

shop steam is reduced to servitude, and compelled with 
giant hands to bore, mortise, plane, polish, fashion, and 
fit great masses of iron, and, anon, with delicate fingers 
to spin gossamer threads of burnished steel. With the 
hot steam coursing through its steel -ribbed veins the 
brain of this automaton thinks the thoughts foreordained 
by its inventor ; its hands do his bidding, its arms fetch 
and carry for him, its feet come and go at his beck 
and nod. This automaton feeds on iron, steel, copper, 
and brass, and produces the watch-spring and the loco- 
motive, the revolver and the Krupp gun, the surgeon's 
lancet and the sliaft of a steamship, the steel pen and the 
steam-hammer, the vault -lock and the pile-driver, the 
sewing-machine and the Corliss engine. The lever which 
wakens this automaton to life, which endows its brain 
with genius and its fingers with cunning, is the rod of 
empire. All the lines of modern development converge 
in the machine-tool shoj), and they are all lines of iron, 
whether consisting of a fine wire strung on poles in mid- 
air or of huge bars resting on the solid earth. Iron is 
the king of metals but the slave of man. Its magnetic 
quality guides the mariner on the sea, and its tough fibre 
and density sustain the weight of the locomotive on the 
land. It constitutes the foundation of every useful art, 
from the plough of the husbandman to the Jacquard 
loom of the weaver. But it is only in the machine-tool 
shop that the great steam-driven machines of commerce 
and manufacture can be produced. The ancients pos- 
sessed iron, which they cast in the foundery and forged 
in the smithy ; they knew the power of steam, and the 
magicians of the time amused the populace with exhibi- 
tions of it, but they had no machine-tool shops in which 
steam could bo harnessed for the journey across conti- 



82 MANUAL TRAINING. 

nents and seas. The thousand and one modern applica- 
tions of iron to the needs of man have originated in the 
machine-tool shop. It is through these applications of 
iron, not through iron itself, that human pursuits have 
been so widely diversified, and human j)owers so richly 
developed and enlarged. 

The contrasts presented by the development of the 
useful arts during the last hundred years are startling: 
The toilsome journey of a day reduced to an hour with 
the maximum of comfort ; the few yards of fabric pain- 
fully woven by hand expanded into webs of cotton, lin- 
en, woollen, and silk cloths, rolling from thousands of 
steam-driven looms ; the stocking once requiring hours 
to make, now dropping second by second from the iron 
fingers of the knitting-machine ; the nails, screws, pins, 
and needles, forged one by one in the old village smithy, 
now flying from the hands of automatic machines by the 
thousand million ; the numberless stitches of the sewing- 
machine as compared with the few of the olden time, 
which made the fingers and the hearts of women ache ; 
the vast crop of cereals planted, cultivated, and gathered 
into barns with iron hands in contrast with the toilsome 
processes of even fifty years ago. These are only a 
few of the many illustrations that might be given of 
progress in the useful arts, and they all emanate from 
the machine-tool shop. 

At the threshold of the most important inquiry that 
ever occupied the mind of man stand the twenty-four 
students we have followed, with more or less regularity, 
through the various laboratories which constitute the 
preliminary steps in the manual training course. It is 
the most important inquiry that ever engaged the atten- 
tion of man, because it touches modern civilization at 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 83 

iriore points than any other. It consists of an investiga- 
tion into the subject of tlie diversity of the applications 
of iron in art, a study both of the minute and the ponder- 
ous in iron tools and machines, and it is by these tools 
and machines that the bulk of the great enterprises of 
the men of modern times are carried forward. These 
students are familiar with the details of the laboratories 
for founding and forging, but the manipulations of those 
branches of iron manufacture are coarse and heavy as 
compared with those of the Machine-tool Laboratory. In 
a word, the difference between the iron manipulations of 
the Machine-tool Laboratory and those of the founding 
and forging laboratories is the exact measure of the dif- 
ference between the modern and the ancient systems of 
civilization. 

The ancient civilizations culminated in that of Rome. 
The Romans possessed iron, but confined their manipula- 
tions of it to the foundery and the smithy. Under the 
Roman empire the enterprises of man — commercial, man- 
ufacturing, and industrial generally — reached the limit 
marked by the applications of iron to the useful arts. It 
is not important in this connection to inquire why in- 
ventions and discoveries ceased. It is enough that they 
ceased. There was an ominous pause ; mankind risen to 
a giddy height looked back instead of still upward ; the 
struggle to advance came to an end, ambition died out of 
life, and a saturnalia of bloody crime and savage brutal- 
ity ensued. Exhaustion followed, then stagnation, moral 
and intellectual, and then the decay of all the arts. The 
world stood still, and in that state of quiescence remain- 
ed until printing was invented and America discovered. 
Still it waited two hundred and fifty years before re- 
ceiving the first hint of steam-driven machines and tlic 



84 MANUAL TRAINING. 

machine-tool shop, and during all that time progress 
was painfully slow. Something was required to give to 
human ambition a grand impulse, and to open to human 
energy and industry a broad field. That something did 
not come till the middle of the eighteenth century, and 
it should never be forgotten that it came then through 
the humble men of the workshop. To their inventive 
genius mankind owes more than to all the philosojjhers, 
litte?'ateu7's,'proie&&ors,Sind statesmen of all time. These 
men of the workshop — Huntsman, Cort, Roebuck, Watt, 
Fulton, Musliet, Hargreaves, ISTeilson, Whitney, Bramah, 
Maudslay, Clement, Murray, Roberts, the Stephensons, 
father and son, and JSTasmyth — invented machines which 
appear to rival human intelligence, and in fact far excel 
human precision in the execution of their work. In en- 
dowing iron with the cunning of genius and the terrific 
power of the fabled cyclops, the modern mechanic has 
revolutionized the field of human effort, transferring it 
from the foundery and the smithy to the machine-tool 
shop. It is here, and here alone, that steam - driven 
machines can be made. They may be conceived in the 
mind of a Watt or a Stephenson, but they can be made 
only by tiie automatic tools of a Maudslay, a Clement, a 
Bramah, or a l^asmyth. Man was lielpless without steam- 
driven machines, and he could not have steam-driven ma- 
chines until machine-made tools had been devised with 
which to make them. The experience of Watt striking- 
ly illustrates this point. When he had completed his in- 
vention of the steam-engine, he found it nearly impossible 
to realize his idea in a working machine, owing to the 
incompetency of the workmen of the time. In reply 
to the inquiry of Dr. Roebuck, "What is the principal 
hinderance in erecting engines?" he responds, "It is ah 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 85 

ways tlie smith-work." His first cylinder, made of ham- 
mered iron soldered together by a whitesmith, was a com- 
plete failure. But even such workmen were so scarce 
that upon the death of this " white-iron man " "Watt was 
reduced almost to a state of despair. " His next cylinder 
was cast and bored at Carron, but it was so untrue that 
it proved next to useless. The piston could not be kept 
steam-tight, notwithstanding the various expedients which 
were adopted of stuffing it with paper, cork, putty, ]3aste- 
board, and old hats." Smeaton, the best workman of the 
time, " expressed the opinion, when he saw the engine at 
work, that notwithstanding the excellence of the inven- 
tion it could never be brought into general use because 
of the difficulty of getting its various jDarts manufactured 
with sufficient precision." "Watt constantly complained 
of " villanous bad workmanshij)." " Machine-made tools 
were unknown, hence there were no good tools. At- 
tempting to run an engine of the old regime, the foreman 
of the shop gave it up in despair, exclaiming, " I think 
we had better leave the cogs to settle their differences 
with one another; they will grind themselves right in 
time." Contrast with this clumsy machine of the hand- 
tool era the Corliss engine of tlie present day, whose 
every movement possesses the noiseless grace of a wom- 
an and the conscious power of a giant ; and this giant 
springs full-armed from the machine-tool shop as Miner- 
va sprang from the brain of Jupiter. Mr. Smiles says, 
"When the powerful oscillating engines of the War- 
rior were put on board that ship, the parts, consisting of 
some five thousand separate pieces, were brought from 
the different workshojDS of the Messrs. Penn & Sons, 
where they had been made by workmen who knew not 
the places they were to occupy, and fitted together with 



86 MANUAL TRAINING. 

sucli precision that so soon as the steam was raised and 
let into the cylinders the immense machine began as if 
to breathe and move like a living creature, stretching its 
huge arras like a new-born giant ; and then, after prac- 
tising its strength a little, and proving its soundness in 
body and limb, it started off with the power of above a 
thousand horses, to try its strength in breasting the bil- 
lows of the Korth Sea." 

The great and small tools, the automata of the ma- 
chine-shop, are no less triumphs of mechanical genius 
than the " powerful oscillating engines of the Wamor.''^ 
The prime difficulty of the hand-worker was to make two 
things exactly alike, then followed the impossibility of 
making many things — the narrow limit of human capac- 
ity to- produce. At that point the inventor appeared 
with a machine which w^ould make a thousand things in 
the time the hand -worker required to make one, and 
each one of them the exact counterpart of every other. 

A hundred years ago John Arnold, the inventor of the 
chronometer, accomplished a marvel of patience and in- 
genuity in the form of a watch the size of twopence and 
the weight of sixpence. The workmanship was so deli- 
cate that he was compelled not only to fashion every 
part with his own hand, but to design and make the tools 
employed in its construction. The watch was presented 
to George III., of England, who showed his appreciation 
of Arnold's mechanical skill in a present of five hundred 
guineas. The Emperor of Russia offered Arnold $5000 
for a duplicate of the wonderful little time-piece, which 
offer was, however, declined. It was so difficult for the 
expert watch-maker of a century ago to make two things 
exactly alike, that Arnold could not afford to undertake 
to make another miniature watch even for the exorbitant 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 87 

price of $5000. But for ten dollars the Elgin (Illinois) 
!N^ational "Watch Company will supply the Emperor of 
Russia with a machine-made watch more nearly perfect 
than Arnold's masterpiece, and on the same day turn out 
one thousand others exactly like it. Imagine yourself 
now in the watch factory of the Elgin Company ; observe 
that artisan holding in his hand a coil of fine steel wire 
weighing a pound. He approaches a machine, places one 
end of the wire in its iron fingers, presses a lever, and in 
a few minutes the coil is converted into two hundred 
thousand minute screws, each and every one as perfect 
as the best that Arnold made for his George III. gem. 

It is with the greatest effort of painstaking care that 
the expert sewing-woman draws two stitches closely re- 
sembling each other, yet while she is making the toil- 
some exertion of her utmost skill the sewing-machine 
sets hundreds of stitches so exactly alike that a micro- 
scopic examination Avould fail to detect the least dissimi- 
larity. 

The sewing-machine affords an admirable illustration 
of tlie interdependence of the practical arts. The sew- 
ing-woman was able to keep pace with the slow and toil- 
some processes of the distaff and loom, but upon the 
application of steam-power to spinning and weaving the 
demand for sewiug was augmented a thousand-fold. If 
the sewing-machine has not emancipated woman from 
the drudgery so pathetically depicted by Tom Hood, it 
has multiplied the production of garments almost beyond 
the power of figures to express. Kote this instance il- 
lustrative of the triumph of automatic machinery in its 
ajjplication to manufactures. " The Emperor of Aus- 
tria was lately presented with a suit of clothes j^ossessing 
this remarkable liistory : The wool from wliieh tlie gar- 



88 MANUAL TRAINING. 

ments were made was clipped from the sheep only elev- 
en hours before the suit was completed. At 6.08 in the 
morning the sheep were sheared; at 6.11 the wool was 
washed; at 6.37 dyed; at 6.50 picked; at 7.34 the final 
carding process was finished ; at eight o'clock it was 
spun; at 8.15 spooled; at 8.37 the warp was in the 
loom ; at 8.43 the shuttles were ready ; at 11.10 seven 
and three-fourth ells of cloth were completed ; at 12.03 
the cloth was fulled ; at 12.14 washed ; at 12.17 sprin- 
kled ; at 12.31 dried ; at 12.45 sheared ; at 1.07 napped; 
at 1.10 brushed ; and at 1.15 prepared and ready for the 
shears and needle. At five o'clock the suit, consisting 
of a liuntiDg-jacket, waistcoat, and trousers, was fin- 
ished." 

There is a sort of anteroom to the Machine-tool Labor- 
atory with which the students are thoroughly familiar. 
It is called the Chipping, Filing, and Fitting Laboratory, 
has twenty-four vises, a great assortment of cold-chisels 
and files, and is devoted to vise work. The course in 
the Chipping Filing and Fitting Laboratory consists of a 
score or more lessons involving various file and chisel 
manipulations, as, "filing to line," "dovetailing," "par- 
allel fitting tongues and grooves," " ring-work and free- 
hand filing," "chipping bevels," "ward-filing and key- 
fitting," "screw-filing," "scraping," etc., each lesson be- 
ing so devised as to insure the introduction of variously 
shaped tools, and their application to the forms of work 
for which they are designed. 

This anteroom to the Machine-tool Laboratory is like 
most anterooms plain in its appointments, and it is also 
like the conventional anteroom, a place where the student 
does not desire to remain long. Tlie witchery of the great 
laboratory beyond has already cast its spell over the boy 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 91 

at tlie vise. But there is excellent hand and eye training 
work in the Chipping, Filing, and Fitting Laboratory. 

The file is a humble tool, but it is older than history, 
dating back to the Greek Mythological period. " From 
the smallest mouse-tail file used in tlie delicate operations 
of the watch and philosophical instrument maker, to the 
square file for the smith's heaviest work, there is a multi- 
farious diversity in shape, size, and gauge of cutting." 
Some of the files made by the Swiss for the watch-maker 
"are of so fine a cut that the unaided eye cannot discern 
the ridges." 

In no department of the useful arts did the hand- 
worker attain to greater dexterity than in file-cutting. 
With a sharp-edged cliisel the file-cutter made from one 
hundred and fifty to two hundred " burs " a minute, and 
they were so fine as to be traced by the sense of touch 
alone, but as straight as though ruled by a machine. The 
hand -working file-cutter held his ground until 1859, 
when a Frenchman, M. Ijernot, invented a file -cutting 
machine which entirely superseded the old method of 
manufacture, reducing the cost of files to one-eighth of 
their former price. 

The lessons in the Machine-tool Laboratory will not be 
described in detail as in the other shops. The processes 
are so delicate and so inti'icate, and tlie resulting prod- 
ucts in machines so closely approacli the marvellous, as to 
beggar description. The poverty of words as compared 
with things asserts itself with unexampled force in the 
presence of a great variety of tools, each of wliicli seems 
to be endowed with the power of reflection, and each of 
which, instead of whispering a word in your ear, drojDS 
into your hand a thing of use to man. 

The laboratory is silent, the tools are dumb, but liow 



92 MANUAL TliAINING. 

eloquently they proclaim the era of comfort and luxury ! 
They have no tongue, but through their lips you shall 
speak across continents and under seas. They have no 
legs, but through their aid you shall, in a race round the 
world, outstrip Mercury. The machines they make shall 
bear all your burdens ; with their brawny arms they lift 
a thousand tons, and with their fingers of fairy-like deli- 
cacy pick up a pin ; with the augur of Hercules they 
bore a channel through the mountain of granite, and 
with a Liliputian gimlet tunnel one of the hairs of your 
head. 

These ingenious tools are worthy of careful inspection 
both on account of the marvels they perform and the 
delicacy of their construction and adjustments. One 
of them, a screw-engine lathe, for example, is taken to 
pieces, and each piece described in order that the stu- 
dents may be made familiar with the construction of the 
tool, and so rendered capable of taking good care of it. 
During this inspection the instructor outlines the history 
of the tool. The main feature is the slide-rest, invented 
by Maudslay while in the employ of Bramah, the lock- 
maker. It is not too much to say that two things exact- 
ly alike, or near enough alike, practically, to serve tlie 
same purpose very well, were never produced on the old- 
fashioned turning lathe. This the instructor endeavors 
to make clear to the class. He also explains precisely 
hovv' Maudslay's improvement remedied the defects of 
the old-fashioned lathe. Still there remained something 
to be done to make it perfect, and putting the pieces to- 
gether the instructor shows where Maudslay's work end- 
ed and that of Clement began. Clement made two im- 
provements in the slide-rest, one involving the principle 
of self- correction, for which he received the gold Isis 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 93 

medal of the Society of Arts in 1827, and tlie other 
consisting of the "self-adjusting donble-driving centre 
check," for which he was awarded the silver medal of the 
same society in 1828. Thus improved or perfected, the 
slide- lathe became the acknowledged king of machine- 
tools, the self-adjusting two -armed driver taking the 
strain from the centre and dividing it between the two 
arms, and so correcting all tendency to eccentricity in 
the work. 

The Machine-tool Laboratory contains a great variety 
of tools, of which the chief are lathes, drills, and planers ; 
bnt there are many auxiliary tools, and in the advanced 
stages of the course a single lesson often affords oppor- 
tunity for the introduction of several of them. And, as 
in the other school laboratories, each tool, upon its first 
presentation to the class, forms the subject of a brief 
lecture — a j^ractical lecture too, for the instructor uses 
the tool while he sketches its history and perhaps that 
of its inventor, shows what place it holds in the order 
of machine-tool development, and how admirably it is 
adapted to its particular Avork, and makes suggestions as 
to its care. Sometimes a lesson involves the use of a 
drawing made by the students a year before, and the 
piece of iron in which it is wrought is the product of a 
previous lesson in forging ; and it may also have been 
manipulated with the file or the cold-chisel, or both, in 
the Chipping, Filing, and Fitting Laboratory. 

From the first lesson in the room devoted to draw- 
ing, to the last lesson in the Machine-tool Laboratory, 
the course of training is orderly, consecutive. Each step 
contains a hint of the nature of the next step, and each 
succeeding step consists of a further application of the 
principles and processes of the last preceding step. In 



94 MANUAL TKAINING. 

a word, tlie students follow tlieir drawings through all 
the laboratories till the designs "are brought out in a 
finished state either in cast or wrought iron," 

The lathe is the fundamental machine-tool, but a com- 
pletely equipped machine-tool laboratory includes a great 
variety of supplementary or auxiliary tools, a thorough 
knowledge of which is essential to a good mechanical ed- 
ucation. It does not follow, because these tools are in a 
large degree automatic, that skill may be dispensed with 
in their use. Many of them are very complicated in de- 
sign and construction, and they can no more be made to 
do efficient service under an unskilled hand than a loco- 
motive can be made to accomplish a series of success- 
ful "runs " by an unskilled "driver." Hence every tool 
in the laboratory is made the subject of an exhaustive 
study. The principle of mechanics involved in its con- 
struction is expounded, a practical illustration of its 
method of operation is given, its peculiar liability to in- 
jury is explained, and rules for its care are carefully for- 
mulated, and frequently repeated. 

There is a prevalent theory that the wide application 
of so-called automatic tools to mechanical work largely 
decreases the legitimate demand for skilled mechanics, 
but it is fallacious. In the first place a thousand things 
are now made where one thing was made fifty years ago. 
In the second place the extensive use of steam and 
electricity greatly enlarges the sphere wherein accurate 
work becomes absolutely essential to human safety, and 
hence extends the field of operations of the inventive 
faculty. In the third place the cost of machine-tool 
made products having been greatly reduced, competition 
is proportionately intensified, thus narrowing the mar- 
gin of profit, and so rendering any injury to machinery 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 97 

through want of skill in the operator relatively more 
disastrous. As a matter of fact a line machine-tool is 
more liable than a watch to get out of order through 
careless handling, and it no more than a watch, can be 
properly repaired by a bungler. It follows that skill in 
the use of machine-tools is as essential to a successful 
mechanical career now, as skill in the use of hand-tools 
was formerly. 

But another conclusion follows more irresistably, name- 
ly — that the civil engineer who devotes his attention to 
the construction and management of massive machinery, 
such as pumps, hydraulic and lever presses, looms, and 
steam-engines, whether locomotive, marine, or other, must, 
in order to be master of his profession, be thoroughly 
familiar with everj^ step of their construction ; and such 
familiarity can only be acquired by a course of practical 
study in the machine-tool shop. It is the province of 
the civil engineer to utilize certain forces of nature in 
the service of man, and it is only through the machine- 
tool shop that such utilization can be effected. It hence 
follows that a practical acquaintance with the manipula- 
tions of the machine-tool shop is an essential prerequisite 
to a successful career in the field of higher mechanics. 
The man who aspires to construct any great mechanical 
engineering work, like the Brooklyn Bridge, for exam- 
ple, must know the exact mechanical power of every 
piece of machinery he employs, as also the exact me- 
chanical value of every piece of iron that enters into the 
structure ; and these things he cannot know unless he 
is familiar with the entire series of iron manipulations, 
from those of the foundcry to those of the machine-tool 
shop. 

The aspect of the Machine-tool Laljoratory when in re- 

5 



98 MANUAL TKAINING. 

pose, so to speak, is dull and uninteresting, not to say 
repellant. There are twenty-four engine-lathes, as many 
adjustable vises, a milling machine, and a variety of aux- 
iliary tools. The lathes are supported by dingy-looking 
cast-iron frames, and under each lathe there is a chest of 
drawers containing a set of tools. Overhead there is a 
wilderness of pulleys and shafting, which seems to the 
untrained eye to have very little relation to the machines 
below. The working parts of the lathes show burnished 
steel surfaces, which reflect coldly the glare of yellow 
sunlight flooding the room. If it were moonlight instead 
of sunlight one might summon the ghosts of those daring- 
men who hundreds and thousands of years ago dreamed 
audaciously of the future of applied mechanics. Roger 
Bacon must have had a vision of the machine-tool shop 
when he said, "I will now mention some of the wonder- 
ful works of art and nature in wdiich there is nothing of 
magic, and which magic could not perform. Instruments 
may be made by which the largest ships, with only one 
man guiding them, w-ill be carried with greater velocity 
than if they were full of sailors; chariots may be con- 
structed that will move with Incredible rapidity without 
the help of animals ; a small instrument may be made to 
raise or de23ress the greatest weights ; an instrument may 
be fabricated by which one man may draw a thousand 
men to him by force and against their will ; as also ma- 
chines which will enable men to walk at the bottom of 
seas or rivers without danger." 

AVhen steam is " turned on " the aspect of the Machine- 
tool Laboratory is completely changed. Steam is, indeed, 
the arch-revolutionist ; it breathes the breath of life into 
inanimate things — makes them think, speak, and act. The 
low hum of unused machinerv first salutes the ear ; then 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORV. 99 

the students take their places. They are three years older 
than when we encountered them in the engine-room. 
They are from seventeen to twenty years of age. They 
are no longer boys ; they are young men — robust, hearty- 
looking young men. Their bearing is very resolute — re- 
markably resolute ; their attitude is erect. They are full- 
cliested, muscular-armed, frank-faced young men. In the 
three years' course now drawing to a close they have 
learned liow to do many things, and hence they show a 
good degree of confidence. But the dominant expression 
on all the interesting young faces is, after all, one of mod- 
esty ; so true is it that every acquisition of knowledge, and 
especially practical knowledge, not only stimulates desire 
to learn more, but enlightens the perception as to the 
magnitude of the field of further inquiry. As the addition 
of a useful thing to the world's stock of things creates a 
demand for a score more of useful tilings, so the addition 
of a fact to the student's stock of facts not only creates a 
desire for more facts, but strengthens the mind for the 
prosecution of the study. 

It may be that there are vain statesmen, philosophers, 
priests, and kings, but we should as little expect to find 
a vain mechanic as a vain scientist. 

These twenty-four students may go out into the world 
to-morrow to make their way. Some of them will en- 
ter upon the stage of active life, others will continue 
their studies in higher schools of literature, science, and 
art ; but whether they go or stay, if they have made the 
most of their opportunities in the Manual Training School 
they have learned the lesson of modesty, and learned to 
respect labor, not only as a means of earning one's daily 
bread, but as the most powerful and the most healthful 
mental and moral stimulant. 



100 MANUAL TRAINING. 

Steam is on, and tlie students standing at the lathes 
are impatient to begin. It is not a lesson in the ordi- 
nary sense. Each student works independently of special 
direction, for each is engaged in making a machine — the 
graduating project. The instructor is at hand, not to 
dictate but to advise, if requested. From his fund of 
experience as the elder scholar he will answer questions 
propounded by his younger fellow-students. In front of 
the students, parts of the working drawings may be seen. 
It is plain that there is to be variety in the exhibit of 
"projects." There are several steam-engines, differing 
in model ; there is a steam-pump, a punching machine, 
a lathe, an electric machine,' and a steam-hammer. 

At a sign work commences — a dozen varieties of work, 
emitting a dozen tones of buzzing and whizzing. The 
instructor's face lights np with a pleased expression as 
he notes the progress of the work. There is no sign 
of hesitation in the class ; no questions are asked ; the 
students seem to be driving straight to the mark. The 
instructor's heart swells with pride ; he can trust " his 
boys !" He has been regarding them with an expression 
of affection, but now his eyes wander — they have a far- 
away look. He no longer sees the students, he is look- 
ing beyond them. He drops into a reclining attitude, 
sighs, falls into a reverie, and dreams. In his dream he 
sees naked savages, emerging from caves, armed with 
clubs, pursuing animals. These are succeeded by men 
bearing rude stone implements — axes and hammers — 
and these in turn by men armed with bows and arrows, 
but half-elotlicd with skins of beasts, and crouching and 
shivering beneath the shelter of the liranches of a tree 
pulled downward and secured by clods of eartli. This 
picture disappears, and is replaced by a pastoral scene 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 101 

■ — a vast plain covered witli flocks and herds. In the 
foregronnd stands the shepherd, and in the distance his 
tent, consisting of skins of beasts stretched on poles, and in 
the tent door a woman sits j)ounding a fleece into felt. 
Tlie shepherd, his flocks and herds, his tent, and the 
woman in the tent door, vanish like the mists of morn- 
ing, and where the shepherd was, the husbandman is seen 
harvesting the golden grain ; and in the shadow of tlie 
cottage which has replaced the tent a woman is pound- 
ing corn. The scene again changes — the plain has be- 
come the site of a great city. The city is protected by 
thick, high walls, surmounted with frowning battlements. 
Sentinels pace back and forth along the parapet. Huge 
helmets protect their heads, and their bodies are clothed 
in armor. Quivers full of bronze-tipped arrows depend 
from their shoulders, in their hands they carry long 
bows, and the clank, clank of their broad, two-edged, 
bronze swords breaks the dull, monotonous routine of 
their march. A brazen gate swings back noiselessly on 
brazen hinges, and bowing to the sentinel, the dreamer as 
noiselessly glides into the city. Suddenly he feels the 
hot breath of the foundery furnace-fire, and is blinded by 
a glare of red light. Shading his eyes he sees dusky 
forms hurrying to and fro with ladles full of molten 
metal. Turning away he hears the heavy stroke of the 
sledge, and looking, beholds a dusty, smoky smithy. The 
stalwart smith drops the sledge at his side, rests one foot 
on the anvil-block, and wipes the sweat from his brow; 
the helper thrusts the cooling iron into the coals, bends 
to the bellows, and the forge-fire sings. At the sound of 
a bell the dreamer starts, the old Assyrian city falls into 
ruins, the ruins crumble into dust, and on this dust an- 
other city rises, flourishes, falls, and piles the dust of 



103 MANUAL TRAINING. 

its ruins. Over a waste of years — twenty centuries — the 
dreamer's thought flashes, and he stands in the presence 
of the Alexandrian mechanic-philosopher. He sees Hero 
in the public street, gazing abstractedly at his condensed- 
air fountain, and follows him into his' shop or laboratory, 
and observes him curiously as he toys with the model of 
a queer little steam-engine. " This is the Iron Age, but 
in its infancy," he exclaims under his breath, as his eyes 
wander from a fine Damascus blade hanging against the 
wall to some poor hand-tools lying on the working-bench. 
" I will speak to this old man," he continues, " and ask 
him to step into my Machine-tool Laboratory, and see my 
boys make steam-engines ; it will be a revelation to him. 
Come, old friend — there — look!" And the dreamer 
looks. Does he see double? The laboratory is un- 
changed ; steam is still on ; the whir of machinery and 
the buzzing sound of steam-driven tools salute the ear, 
and the students are all busy at their benches finishing 
parts of "projects" and adjusting them in their places. 
But there are twenty-four other men — shades of men — in 
the laboratory. Most of them are old ; some are in work- 
ing clothes, others in full dress, wearing ribbons and or- 
ders of merit. Over each student one of these shades 
bends with an air of absorbing attention. The dreamer 
recognizes Papin, Fulton, Watt, and Stephenson shadow- 
ing the students engaged in the construction of engines. 
They beckon Hero, and he joins the group, threading his 
way timidly between the lines of lathes, and looking 
askance at the rapidly revolving wheels and flying belts. 
Over the shoulders of other students are seen the faces 
of Maudslay, Bramah, Clement, Eoberts, Whitney, ISTa- 
smyth, Huntsman, Cort, Murray, Dudley, Yarranton, Koe- 
buck, and Whitworth, besides several unfamiliar faces. 



THE MACHINE-TOOL LABORATORY. 103 

Suddenly tliey all gather about a nearly completed proj- 
ect — a stationary engine. They witness the forcing 
home of the last screw ; they see the miniature machine 
made fast to the bench. Steam is let into the cylinders. 
The student's flushed face is in sharp contrast with the 
colorless faces of the group of old men by whom he is 
surrounded. The piston-rod moves languidly — the ma- 
chine trembles as if awaking from slumber, the shaft os- 
cillates slowly, then faster, then regularly, like a strong 
pulse-beat. The project is a success — the first one com- 
pleted! The student's face turns pale — as pale as the 
white faces of the old men at his side. They ojDen their 
lips as if to cheer him, but no sound is heard. lie 
breathes quick — almost gasps; his heart beats loudly; he 
tries to shout but cannot utter a word. At last he claps 
his hands ! The instructor starts from his chair, rubs his 
eyes, and stares around the laboratory. All the students 
are there, gathered in a group about the finished " proj- 
ect," but the ghostly shades of the old inventors have 
vanished like the unsubstantial fabric of a vision. 

The " projects " are not all finished on the same day. 
Some of them are far more complicated than others, and 
some students are more skilled than others. All are very 
busy. It is not improper to ask questions relating to work 
on the graduating projects ; the instructor is at hand to 
answer such questions. But it is a point of honor not 
to ask a question if the difficulty can possibly be other- 
wise overcome. Hence very few questions are asked. 

The last week of the term is a very trying one to 
all concerned. The students are reticent and unusual- 
ly silent ; all are anxious, some are timid — the nervous 
tension is extreme. The instructor becomes taciturn 
under a painful sense of compulsory isolation from his 



104 MANUAL TRAINING, 

class, towards all tlie members of which he has, for three 
years, sustained fraternal rather than dictatorial relations. 
But as the projects are, one by one, completed, the atmos- 
phere clears. "When the student realizes that his project 
is certainly not to be a failure, his face lightens and he is 
pleased to discuss its " points " with the instructor. The 
instructor is delighted to resume his former relations 
with the class, the feeling of constraint is dispelled, and 
the graduation-day exercises are contemplated with con- 
fidence. 



MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED. 105 



CHAPTER X. 

MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED. 

Tlie new Education is all-sided — its Effect. — A Harmonious Devel- 
opment of the "Whole Being. — Examination for Admission to the 
Chicago School. — List of Questions in Arithmetic, Geography, and 
Language. — The Curriculum. — The Alternation of Manual and 
Mental Exercises. — The Demand for Scientific Education — its 
Effect. — Ambition to be useful. 

We have now passed in review all the school labora- 
tories, from the engine-room, or laboratory where power 
is generated, to the Machine-tool Laboratory where pow- 
er is utilized, or harnessed, and compelled to do the work 
of man. We have observed the student, in his first 
effort over the drawing-board, struggling laboriously to 
make a straight line, and in the Laboratory of Carpentry, 
trying with varying success to make a tenon fit the mor- 
tise, and we have stood by his side in the Machine-tool 
Laboratory in the moment of his triumph exhibiting his 
graduating " project " — a miniature engine throbbing un- 
der the pressure of steam, and doing its work with ad- 
mirable precision. But we have seen only the manual 
side of the curriculum. The mental side is still to be 
shown. The claim made in behalf of the new education 
is that it is better balanced than the old, that it is all- 
sided, that it produces a harmonious development of the 
whole being, that it makes of the student a man fully 
furnished for the battle of life, mentally, morally, and 
physically. Accordingly the curriculum of the Manual 
Training School combines with the laboratory exercises 

5* 



106 MANUAL TRAINING. 

a variety of mental exercises of quite a comprehensive 
character ; and first, certain mental acquirements are nec- 
essary to admission, as v/itness the following from the 
first catalogue of the Chicago school: 

" Candidates for admission to the first year must be at 
least fourteen years of age, and must present sufficient 
evidence of good moral character. They must pass a 
satisfactory examination in reading, spelling, writing, ge- 
ography, English composition, and the fundamental oper- 
ations of arithmetic as applied to integers, common and 
decimal fractions, and denominate numbers. Ability to 
use the English language correctly is especially desired." 

The following questions w^ere used at the first exami- 
ation for admission to the Chicago school. 

AErrnMETic. 
Transcribe work sufiicient to show processes. ISTo 
credit given for results alone. 

1. Change to decimals and find the sum of f, f , -^-, ^, |^. 
3. Divide the product of 28| and 13| by the difference of 8^^ 
and 4|. 

3. Divide .00875 by 12i. 

4. Reduce .395 of a mile to integers. 

5. If a locomotive move f of a mile in f| of an hour, what is its 
speed per hour? 

6. A man invested ^ of his money in land, .135 of it in stocks, 
$13,000 in a vessel, and had $55,500 remaining. How much did he 
invest in land? 

7. Bought a square mile of land at $75 an acre. I reserved 160 
acres of it for streets and alleys, and divided the remainder into lots 
each 66 feet front by 200 feet deep, all of which I sold for $15 per 
front foot. The expense of surveying, etc., was $3000. What did I 
gain? 

8. How many balls, each -} of an inch in diameter, are equal in 
weight to a ball of the same material 1 foot in diameter? 

9. Find cost of material for making box, inside measurement 4 by 



MANUAL, AND MENTAL TKAINING COMBINED. 109 

2 by 3 feet, of inch lumber, worth $30 per M., -^^ of the lumber pur- 
chased being -wasted. Include in the cost 7 dozen, screws at $1.80 
per gross. 

10. What is the height of a rectangular cistern capable of contain- 
ing GOO gallons, the bottom of which is 7 by 11 feet, inside measure- 
ment? 

GEOGRAPHY. 

1. Name the five most populous cities of the United States in 
order of population. On what water is St. Petersburg? Dublin? 
Rome? Calcutta? Cairo? 

2. Locate the principal coal fields and iron regions of the United 
States. "What minerals occur in Illinois? 

3. Draw map of Illinois, showing by what States and by what 
waters bounded. Locate the capital and the largest city of Illinois. 

4. Name the outlet of Lake Erie; of Lake Champlain; of Great 
Salt Lake; of the Black Sea; of Lake Victoria Nyanza. 

5. Compare the latitude and climate of Spain and Illinois. 

6. How docs the island of Great Britain compare in area with the 
United States, or with any one of the United States which you may 
mention? 

7. How do the Alps compare in height with the Rocky Mount- 
ains? Name the highest peak in Europe; in North America; in 
South America; in the world. 

8. How does climate vary with altitude above the sea level? Il- 
lustrate by an example. 

9. What is the cause of day and night? Of changes of seasons? 
What is latitude? Longitude? 

10. When it is 11 a.m. by " Central Time " in Chicago, what is the 
hour by "Eastern Time"iu New York City? What is the hour in 
London? Is " Central Time " in Chicago the true time? Why? 

Or, in place of the last question: What are the termini of the 
Illinois and Micliigan Canal? What waters are connected by the 
Suez Canal? Of what water route does the Suez Canal take the 
place? 

LANGUAGE. 

1. Correct in every particular, and give reason for each correction: 

a. The man which was sick has went to his work. 

b. Every person should attend to their own affairs. 

c. Such expressions sound harshly. 



110 MANUAL TEAINING. 

d. Between you and I, this is a real easy examination. 

e. The cause of the tides were not wholly unknown to the an- 
cients. 

2. "Pleasantly rose next morning the sun on the village of Grand 
Pre." 

How is the idea of the rising of the sun modified? 

3. "Flashed all their sabres bare, 

Flashed as they turned in air, 
Sab'ring the gunners there, 
Charging an array, while 

All the Avorld wondered." 
Change to good prose. 

4. State the meaning of each prefix and suffix in the following 
words: Emigrate; Immigrate; Illegally; Admissible; Thoughtless- 
ness; Affixing. 

5. a. Why is the final e of "service " retained in "serviceable?" 

b. Write the present participle of "befit;" of "benefit." 

What difference in spelling? Why? 

c. Define Ancient; Venerable; Obsolete. 

6. Write an essay on Chicago, mentioning the rapid growth of the 
city; its land and water communications; its commerce and manu- 
factures ; its public buildings ; its institutions of learning and charity, 
and any other items which may occur to you. 

Having passed the ordeal of tlie foregoing battery of 
questions tlie student of the Chicago Manual Training 
School finds his mental exercises alternated with manual 
exercises throughout the entire course in something like 
the following order, namely : 

First Year. — Arithmetic, Algebra, English Language, History, 
Physiology, Physical Geographj^, Free-hand and Mechanical Draw- 
ing. Laboratory/ Work: Carpentry, Wood - carving, Wood - turning. 
Pattern-making, Proper Care and Use of Tools. 

Second Year. — Algebra, Plane Geometry, Physics, Mechanics, 
History, Literature, Geometrical and Mechanical Drawing. Labo- 
ratory Work : Moulding, Casting, Forging, Welding, Tempering, Sol- 
dering, and Brazing. 

Third Year. — Geometry, Plane Trigonometry, Book-keeping, 
Literature, Political Economy, Civil Government, Mechanics, Chem- 



MANUAL AND MENTAL TRAINING COMBINED, m 

istry, Machine and Architectural Drawing. Machine-tool Laboratory 
Work, such as Chipping, Filing, Fitting, Turning, Drilling, Planing, 
etc. Study of Machinery, including the Management and Care of 
Steam-engines and Boilers. 

Latin may be taken instead of Englisli Language, Lit- 
erature, and History. Instruction will be given each 
year in the properties of the materials — wood, iron, brass, 
etc. — used in that year. 

Throughout the course, one hour per day, or more, 
will be given to drawing, and not less than two hours 
j)er day to laboratory work. The remainder of the 
school day will be devoted to study and recitation. Be- 
fore graduating, each pupil will be required to construct 
a machine from drawings and patterns made by himself. 
A diploma will be given on graduation. 

The new education is a blending of manual and men- 
tal training. It recognizes the fact that science discov- 
ers and art utilizes, and that these two forces move the 
modern world. 

At i^resent the Manual Training School is a missionary 
enterprise. Its purpose is to create in the public mind 
an imperative demand for the incorporation of its scien- 
tific methods into the public-school course of instruction. 

A vast majority of our people are employed in the 
useful arts, and distinction in every department of labor 
now depends upon scientific education. "Without tech- 
nical education or manual training the laborer of the 
future cannot hope to rise above the grade of a piece of 
automatic machinery. He falls into the routine of the 
shop like a cog or lever moved by steam. To avert this 
dire misfortune our common schools must be made 
institutions for manual as well as intellectual training. 
They must inculcate the dignity of labor not by precept 



113 MANUAL TRAINING. 

merely, but by examj^le. It is not enough that schools 
of technology, polytechnic institutes, and manual train- 
ing schools are being established here and there by pri- 
vate subscription. The sujDply of these classes of edu- 
cation is only a drop in the bucket to the public demand. 
Technical and manual training must be made part of the 
general public educational system. In our city high- 
schools we now fit boys for college. In those schools 
we must hereafter fit tiiem for the colleges of art. 
"When this shall liave become the fashion in education 
there will be thousands of high -school graduates with 
a grand passion for mechanical pursuits — boys with 
more curiosity on the subject of the expansive force of 
steam than on the subject of " Greek roots ;" with more 
ambition to invent something useful to mankind than to 
learn how to draw a bill in chancery ; Avitli a stronger de- 
sire to discover a new secret in electricity than to carry 
off a prize for the best Latin oration. 



THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TKAINING. 113 



CHAPTER XL 

THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 

Intelligence is the Basis of Character. — The more Practical the In- 
telligence the Higher the Development of Character. — The use of 
Tools quickens the Intellect. — Making Things rouses the Attention, 
sharpens the Observation, and steadies the Judgment. — History 
of Inventions in England, 1740-1840. — Poor, Ignorant Apprentices 
become learned Men. — Cort, Huntsman, Mushet, Neilson, Ste- 
phenson, and Watt. — The Union of Books and Tools. — Results at 
Rotterdam, Holland ; at Moscow, Russia ; at Komotau, Bohemia ; 
and at St. Louis, Mo. — The Consideration of Overwhelming Import. 

The quality of all civilizations depends npon intelli- 
gence and character, or morality, in the order stated ; for 
morality springs from intelligence, not intelligence from 
morality. This is an axiomatic deduction of historic 
analysis.* IS^or would it be difficult to prove that prao- 

* "But if we contrast this stationary aspect of moral truths with 
the progressive aspect of intellectual truths, the difference is, indeed, 
startling. . . . These are to every educated man recognized and no- 
torious facts, and the inference to be drawn from them is immedi- 
ately obvious. Since civilization is the product of moral and intel- 
lectual agencies, and since that product is constantly changing, it 
evidently cannot be regulated by the stationary agent; because when 
surrounding circumstances are unchanged, a stationary agent can 
only produce a stationary effect. The only other agent is the intel- 
lectual one, and that this is the real mover may be proved in two 
distinct ways : first, because being, as Ave have already seen, cither 
moral or intellectual, and being, as we have also seen, not moral, it 
must be intellectual; and secondly, because the intellectual principle 
has an activity and a capacity for adaptation whicli, as I undertake 
to show, is quite sulficient to account for the oxlraon 11 nary progress 



114 MANUAL TRAINING. 

tical intelligence is more conducive to a liigli develop- 
ment of morals than mere theoretical intelligence. For 
is it not true that the nations most skilled in the useful 
arts are most highly cultured in morals? And if it be 
true, it constitutes a potential argument in suj)port of 
joining to intellectual instruction in the schools a course 
of training in the elements of the useful arts. And of 
the fact which forms the basis of this argument there is 
a logical explanation. 

ISTothing stimulates and quickens the intellect more 
than the use of mechanical tools. The boy who begins 
to construct things is compelled at once to begin to think, 
deliberate, reason, and conclude. As he proceeds he is 
brought in contact with powerful natural forces. If he 
would control, direct, and apply these forces he must 
first master the laws by which they are governed ; he 
must investigate the causes of the phenomena of matter, 
and it will be strange if from this he is not also led to a 
study of the phenomena of mind. At the very threshold 
of practical mechanics a thirst for wisdom is engendered, 
and the student is irresistibly impelled to investigate the 
mysteries of philosophy. Thus the training of the eye 
and the hand reacts upon the brain, stimulating it to ex- 
cursions into the realm of scientific discovery in search 
of facts to be applied in practical forms at the bench and 
the anvil. 

The history of invention and discovery in England af- 
fords a striking confirmation of the truth of the propo- 
sition that mechanical investigation, with tools in hand, 
stimulates the intellectual faculties to the highest point 

that, during several centuries, Europe has continued to make." — 
Buckle's "History of Civilization," Vol. I., p. 130. D. Appleton & 
Co., 1864. 



THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 115 

of activity and excellence. The germs of nearly all the 
great inventions in meclianics, the benefit of which the 
world is now enjoying in such ample measure, are direct- 
ly traceable to the workshops of Great Britain during 
the period 17^0-1840. 

J England had then no popular system of education, and 
the apprentices in her shops were poor, obscure, and, at 
the start, illiterate. But to those poor apj^rentices the 
honor of the great inventions and discoveries of that age 
is almost wholly due. And it is a notable fact that in 
the struggle to invent tools and machines, to master the 
art of mechanism, to steal from ISTature her secret forces, 
and harness and use them for the benefit of mankind, the 
toiling workers not infrequently became highly educated, 
intellectual giants, familiar not alone with special studies, 
but masters of many branches of learning. 

In 1770 the Russian Government, aware of the inferi- 
ority of English iron, and deeming Russian iron essential 
to England, directed the price of iron for exjiort to be 
raised three hundred per cent. This arbitrary act stim- 
ulated invention. Henry Cort, the son of a brick-maker, 
entered upon a series of experiments, with a view to the 
improvement of English iron. They occupied several 
years, and were of a very expensive character — so expen- 
sive as eventually to bankrupt the man who made them. 
They were, however, so successful as to constitute a splen- 
did epoch in the history of metallurgy. In 1786 Lord 
Shefiield declared that Cort's improvements in iron, and 
the steam-engine of Watt, were of more value to Great 
Britain than the thirteen colonies of America; and in 
18G2 it was estimated that those improvements had added 
three thousand million dollars to the wealth of England 
alone, to say nothing of the rest of the world of iron 



116 MANUAL TKAINING. 

manufacture tbrougliout wliich tliey had been applied. 
But the only estate secured by this great man as a re- 
ward of his genius and a life of toil, as his biographer 
patlietically remarks, Avas "the little domain of six feet 
by two in Avhich he lies buried in Hampstead church- 
yard." 

In 1715 Sheffield contained two thousand inhabitants, 
of whom one-third were beggars. Its manufactures con- 
sisted of jews -harps, tobacco-boxes, and knives. Shef- 
field is now the chief seat of the steel manufacture of 
the world. The initial stej) in this great transformation 
scene was taken by Benjamin Huntsman. He was born 
in 1704, and bred to a mechanical calling. The early 
years of his life were S23ent in the occupation of clock 
making and repairing. He was shrewd, observant, and 
practical, and he gradually extended the scope of his 
profession to rej)airing, and finally to making hand-tools. 
In this branch of his trade he detected defects in the 
German steel in common use. He removed from Don- 
caster to Sheffield, and there in the privacy of his cottage 
studied metallurgy, and for years labored in secret over 
the furnace and the crucible. His numerous failures 
were subsequently found chronicled in masses of metal, 
in various stages of imperfection, buried in the earth. 
But when he emerged from his long seclusion he offered 
to his fellow-mechanics a piece of cast-steel so hard that 
they declined to work it. He sent the product of his 
works to France, and the French knives and razors made 
from it and imported into England drove the Sheffield 
cutlery from the market. Then the Sheffield cutlers 
sought to have the export of steel prohibited. Failing 
in that they stole Huntsman's secret. This was possible, 
since the process had not been patented. The story of 



THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. II7 

the theft is told in a little ^-ork entitled " The Useful 
Metals and their Alloys." It is in substance that one 
Walker, an iron-founder, " disguised himself as a tramp, 
and feigning great distress and abject poverty, apj)eared 
shivering at the door of Huntsman's foundery late one 
night when the workmen were about to begin their la- 
bors at steel-casting, and asked for permission to warm 
himself by the furnace-fire." He was permitted to enter, 
and when he left he carried away the secret of the in- 
ventor of cast-steel. 

Huntsman was a member of the Society of Friends, 
and it was doubtless on that account that he declined a 
membersliijD of the Royal Society tendered to him in 
honor of his great discovery or invention of cast-steel. 

David Mushet's discovery of the extraordinary value 
of black-band iron-stone in 1801 made Scotland a first- 
class iron-producing country ; and ISTeilson's invention of 
the hot-blast in 1828 revolutionized the processes of iron 
manufacture by vastly cheapening them. Both these 
men sjDrang from the labor class, and both w^ere self- 
educated. Through almost superhuman efforts they rose 
from poverty and obscurity to fame. Mushet's "Pa- 
pers on Iron and Steel," in the language of Smiles, " are 
among the most valuable original contributions to the 
literature of iron manufacture that have yet been given 
to the world ;" and ]^eilson was made a member of the 
Koyal Society in recognition of his distinguished ability 
and the great services he rendered in the cause of the 
useful arts. 

George Stephenson rose from the coal-mine to the 
summit of renown as a theoretical and practical mechan- 
ic. "While employed in various collieries as " fireman " 
and " plugman," he acquired a thorough knowledge of 



118 MANUAL TEAINING. 

the engines then in use, taking them apart, repairing, and 
putting them together again. At eighteen years of age 
he could not read. In the course of two years attend- 
ance at night-schools he learned to read, write, and ci- 
pher."-^"' Continuing to work in collieries, he employed his 
leisure hours in studying mechanics and engineering, and 
in mending clocks and shoes. "When thirty-one years of 
age he was appointed " engine wright " at Killing worth 
Colliery, at a salary of £100 a year. From this point of 
time dates his career as an inventor. His first locomo- 
tive was completed in 1814, and the "Rocket" made 
its trial trip in 1829. During the intervening fifteen 
years Stephenson was largely engaged in the engineering 
department of railway enterprises as well as in the pros- 
ecution of experiments for the j^erfecting of locomotive 
engines. The most eminent engineers of the time doubt- 
ed the practicability of the locomotive, and continued 
to recommend stationary engines, while Stephenson was 
leading up to the "Rocket." The success of the "Rock- 
et " made its inventor the most famous mechanic in the 
world. For the next fifteen years he was the leading 
spirit in all the great railway enterprises of England, be- 

* " In conclusion, we are of opinion that special instruction which 
can be applied to the material would be at once more fruitful in good 
results and more attractive if the pupil could go from the class-room 
to the workshop (laboratory) to practically demonstrate the theories 
to which he has just been listening. In support of this opinion we 
might add the observations made in our own evening-schools, where 
the most noteworthy and rapid progress is made in those cases where 
the pupil has occasion to put into actual practice on the material 
itself the instruction which he has received in the drawing-class." — 
" Report of Committee of Council of Arts and Manufactures of the 
Province of Quebec, created to Inquire into the Question of Practical 
Schools." 



THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 119 

sides being called repeatedly to Belgium and S23ain as 
consulting engineer. He was offered a fellowship of the 
Royal Society, also one in the Civil Engineers' Society, 
also knighthood by Sir Robert Peel, All these empty 
honors he declined. '•' I have to state," he said, in rejDly 
to a request for his " ornamental initials," " that I have 
no flourishes to my name, either before or after, and I 
think it will be as well if you merely say George Ste- 
phenson." He may justly be styled the founder of the 
existing railway system of the world, which undoubtedly 
exerts more influence upon civilization than any other 
one cause or set of allied causes; and to have risen from 
the humblest station in a colliery to the dignity of found- 
ing such a system is sufficient evidence of a gigantic in- 
tellectual growth. 

James Watt was an extremely fragile child, and hence 
unable to join in the rude sports of robust children. Thus 
confined within-doors he early amused himself by draw- 
ing " with a pencil upon paper, or with chalk upon the 
floor." He was also suj)plied with a few tools from his 
father's carpenter's shop, " which he soon learned to han- 
dle with considerable expertness." Mr. Smiles, in his 
biography of AYatt, says, " The mechanical dexterity he 
acquired was the foundation upon which he built the 
speculations to which he owes his glory, nor without this 
manual training is there the least likelihood that he would 
have become the improver and almost the creator of the 
steam-engine." " In the parrot-power of learning or mem- 



* "I believe that well-advised practice in any of the constnictive 
arts involving not more than one-third of the student's time will yield 
as much mental improvement as Avill result if the whole time be de- 
voted to study from textbooks."— Prof. "Wni. F. M. Goss, six rears 



120 MANUAL TRAINING. 

orizing Watt was a dull boy, and lie left the grammar- 
scliool of his native town at an early age, never to return 
to the " halls of learning." But while engaged in humble 
mechanical employments he perfected his education, study- 
ing after work-hours. He nearly starved his body, but con- 
stantly added to his intellectual stores. He mastered the 
principles of engineering, civil and military, studied natu- 
ral history, criticism, art, and acquired several modern lan- 
guages. In a word, without the aid of the schools, but 
under the stimulating influence of mechanical investiga- 
tion and work, Watt became an accomplished and scien- 
tific man. When nearly eighty years of age he and Sir 
Walter Scott met. Referring to the occasion, and speak- 
ing of Watt, Sir Walter is reported to have said, " The 
alert, kind, benevolent old man had his attention alive to 
every one's question, his information at every one's com- 
mand. His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. 
One gentleman was a deep philologist — he talked with 
him on the origin of the alphabet as if he had been 
coeval with Cadmus ; another a celebrated critic — you 
would have said the old man had studied political econ- 
omy and belles-lettres all his life ; of science it is un- 
necessary to speak — it was his distinguished walk." 
These examples of remarkable intellectual development 

Director of the Department of Practical Mechanics of Purdue Uni- 
versity. 

' ' And reflect that he will learn more by one hour of manual labor 
than he will retain from a whole day's verbal instructions." — "The 
Emilius and Sophia" of J. J. Eousseau, Vol. II., p. 64. London: 
17G7. 

"The things themselves are the best explanations. I can never 
enough repeat it, that we make words of too much consequence ; 
with our prating modes of education we make nothing but praters." 
-^Ibid., p. 46. 



THE INTELLECTUAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TEAINING. 121 

in connection with tool - practice are not pTienomenal, 
From the annals of invention and discovery numerous 
instances might be cited in support of the proposition 
of this chapter, that tool-practice stimulates intellectual 
growth. 

^ In the Artisan's School at Rotterdam, Holland, an ex- 
perience of seven years has demonstrated that " boys who 
are occupied one-half the day with books in the school, 
and the remaining half with tools in the laboratories, 
make about as rapid intellectual progress as those of equal 
^.bility who sj)end the whole day in study and recitation," 
o'he testimony of Dr. Woodward, director of tlie St. Louis 
(Mo.) Manual Training School, is to the same effect. And 
in one of his reports he says, " Success in drawing or shop- 
work has often had the eifect of arousing the ambition 
in mathematics and history, And vice vei^sa. . . . The habit 
of working from drawings and to nice measurements has 
given the students a confidence in themselves altogether 
new. This is shown in the readiness with which they 
undertake the execution of small commissions in behalf 
of the school. ... In fact, the increased usefulness of our 
students is making itself felt, and in several instances the 
result has been the offer of business positions too tempt- 
ing to be rejected." 

Of the results achieved by the Imperial Technical 
School, Moscow, Eussia, M. Victor Delia -Vos, director, 
speaks with the utmost confidence. He says, " And now 
(1878) we present our system of instruction, not as a 
project, but as an accomplished fact, confirmed by the 
long experience of ten years of success in its results." 
The methods of instruction of the school at Moscow 
were introduced into all the technical schools of Russia 
in 1870. 



122 MANUAL TRAINING. 

A similar degree of success has attended the Royal 
Mechanic Art School at Komotan, Bohemia. The man- 
agement says, " The school has shown the most brilliant 
proofs of usefulness, and the ends gained have been ac- 
knowledged at home and abroad. One proof is that in 
spite of the hard times all the pupils from Komotau 
have found occupation in different manufacturing estab- 
lishments; and another that England, a country unsur- 
passed in the manufactures of iron and steel, has already 
sent some students to the school." 

If the pupil in the Manual Training School makes as 
rapid progress intellectually as the pupil in the public or 
private school of corresponding grade, it follows that 
whatever skill in the use of tools is acquired, and what- 
ever knowledge of practical mechanics is gained, these 
stand for the net gain of the pupil of the new sys- 
tem of education. But much more follows by implica- 
tion. For if the few pupils of the world's few manual 
training schools are making equal intellectual progress 
with the many j)upils of the many schools of the old re- 
gime^ and making such progress in a little more than half 
the study-hours, the consideration of overwhelming im- 
port is the loss sustained by the millions of pupils being 
trained under the old system. 



THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A PKIME NECESSITY. 123 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A PRIME NECESSITY. 

The Difference between Ancient and Modern Systems of Education. 
— Plato Blinded by Half-truths. — No place in the present order of 
things for Dogmatisms. — Education commences at Birth. — The In- 
fluence of "Woman extends from, the Cradle to the Grave. — The 
Crime of Crimes— Neglect to educate Woman. — The Superiority 
of Women over Men as Teachers — Froebel discovered it. — Nature 
designed W^oman to Teach ; hence the Importance of Fitting her 
for her Highest Destiny. 

Tins, from the lips of Plato, was tlie theory of the 
ancients : "The earth is the common mother of the hu- 
man race, but it has pleased the gods to mix gold in the 
composition of some, silver in that of others, iron and 
copper in that of others."* On this divinely established 
principle of caste all the ancient educational systems were 
founded. They were limited to the development of the 
few in whose composition gold was supposed to be mixed. 

The idea of a universal education is modern, and all 
other differences between the ancients and moderns com- 
bined are as nothing to this one fundamental difference 
between the two civilizations. Plato's ideal republic was 
based upon the assumption that the " guardians " might 
be made just and wise by educating them ; l)ut that the 
other classes might also be made just and wise l)y educa- 

* "The Republic of Plato," p. 114. London: Macmillan & Co., 
1881. 

6 



124 MANUAL TRAINING. 

tion, and the State be so rendered absolutely secure, did 
not occur to the great philosopher. 

Plato was blinded by half-truths, as Eousseau was two 
thousand years later, when he said, " The poor stand in 
no need of education ; that of their station is confined, 
and they cannot obtain any other."" That men are cre- 
ated unequal intellectually is only a half-truth in an edu- 
cational view ; the whole truth is that every child is sus- 
ceptible of the developing influence of education, and 
hence the obligation of the State to educate relates to all 
children. Plato's simile of the gold, the silver, and the 
iron shows how autocratically even the greatest mind is 
controlled by its environment, and limited by the facts 
which constitute the basis of its generalizations. "Were 
Plato teaching here, now, he would transpose the order of 
statement in his simile, since iron, not gold, is the king 
of metals. Each generation increases the world's stock 
of facts ; hence there is no place in the modern order of 
things for the dogmatist — the dogmatisms of yesterday 
become apt themes for the satires of to-day, subjecting 
their authors to ridicule. This fact should impress upon 
professional teachers, and upon all persons engaged in 
seeking to promote the cause of education, the import- 
ance of a reverently studious habit of mind touching the 
progress of events. The tyranny of tradition is an ever- 
present, potent influence, and only the growing mind can 
resist it. 

But there are certain principles upon which not only 
ancient and modern educators agree, but about which 
there is no dispute between existing rival schools, as, for 
example, tins proposition of Plato — 

* "Emilius and Sophia," Vol. I., p. 40. Loudon: 1767. 



THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A PRIME NECESSITY. 135 

" The beginning is the most important part, especially 
in dealing with anything young and tender, for that is 
the time when any impression which one may desire to 
communicate is most readily stamped and taken."* 

And this proposition of Rousseau — 

" The education of a man commences at his birth ; be- 
fore he can speak, before he can understand, he is already 
instructed. . . . Trace the progress of the most ignorant of 
mortals from his birth to the present hour and you will 
be astonished at the knowledge he has acquired."f 

And this further proposition, also of Rousseau — 

"The common profession of all men is humanity; and 
whoever is well educated to dischai-ge the duties of a 
man cannot be badly prepared to fill up any of those 
offices that have a relation to liini.":}: 

The truth of these propositions being admitted, some 
conception may be formed of the tremendous influence 
exerted by woman upon the destinies of the human race. 
It extends literally from the cradle to the grave. All 
other influences combined are less potent, less compre- 
hensive than this single, persistent force that creates the 
very atmosphere in which the infant mind develops, 
holding the ground alone and undisturbed until the 
child's plastic character has been formed, receiving in- 
eradicable impressions. What a crime, then, was the neg- 
lect of the people of past ages to educate woman ! It 
is in vain that the education of man is attempted if that 
of woman is neglected. It was Rousseau who in despair 
exclaimed : 

* " Tlif3 Republic of Plato," p. 65. London ; Macniillan & Co., 
1881. 
f " Erailiu3 and Sophia," Vol. I., p. 54. London : 1767. 
t Ibid., Vol. I., p. 13. 



136 MANUAL TRAINING. 

"How can a child be properly educated by one who 
has not been properly educated himself ?" 

Since, therefore, the education of the man begins while 
he lies helpless in his mother's arms, and since the first 
steps in this direction are the most important, and since 
some sort of education proceeds with almost inconceiv- 
able rapidity through all the early years of life, it fol- 
lows that the kindergarten fills a place in the educational 
field entirely unoccupied until the time of Froebel. He 
first applied the ideas of Rousseau to school life. But 
when the kindergarten receives the child, three or four of 
the most precious educational years have already passed 
away, and at the still tender age of seven the child is 
surrendered to a very different system of training. The 
kindergarten is therefore only a brief episode in the edu- 
cational period of the child's life. But if it be the true 
education, it is susceptible of universal application. 
Throughout all nature the order of development is con- 
stant and harmonious, and the child -nature cannot in 
reason constitute an exception to this rule. Froebel said, 
" The end and aim of all our work should be the har- 
monious growth of the whole being." If his principle is 
the true one, his method is susceptible of such modifica- 
tion and expansion as to render it applicable to the whole 
educational period. All mothers should therefore be 
trained in the principles and methods of the new edu- 
cation — the kindergarten system should prevail in all 
schools, and the kindergarten curriculum should be ex- 
tended and adapted to all ages and grades of pupils. 

Several great minds, separated by considerable inter- 
vals of time, have united in condemning the old systems 
of education — Bacon, Comenius, Kousseau, Pestalozzi, 
and Froebel. Bacon, himself a university man, said, 



THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A PRIME NECESSITY. 127 

"They learn nothing at the universities but to believe;" 
and he proposed that a college be appropriated to the 
discovery of new truth, "to mix like a living spring witli 
the stagnant waters." Three of these great men — Co- 
men ius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel — were professional teach- 
ers. Theoretically they were in accord with and follow- 
ers of Bacon, and in practice they were substantially 
agreed. Comenius said, " Let things that have to be done 
be learned by doing them." Pestalozzi said, " Education 
is the generation of power," and Froebel said, " The end 
and aim of all our work should be the harmonious growth 
of the whole being." 

These are very high authorities, and they are buttressed 
by seemingly imj^regnable educational proiDOsitions. The 
record of Froebel's life is worthy of great weight in sup- 
port of his theory. His devotion to the cause of educa- 
tion was absolute. He never knew a selfish aim. He 
struggled for the race, not for self. He was the victim 
of many misfortunes, but none disturbed the serenity of 
this great soul devoted to the greatest of great causes — 
the causfe of education. And education to his apprehen- 
sion was the thorough training of every faculty of the 
mind and every power of the body for the duties of act- 
ual practical life. His love embraced the world in its 
entirety and in all its parts. Dying, he said, " I love 
flowers, men, children, God ! I love everything !" It 
was his profoundly philosophic conception of the innate 
lovableness of every natural object that made him shud- 
der at the cruel distortion wrought in the natures of 
little children by false methods of education. Hence 
his intense devotion to the subject of infant training, and 
hence the excellence of the system which bears his name. 

Froebel's most subtile discovery was the fact of tlie 



128 MANUAL TRAINING. 

superiority of women over men, as teachers. Only an 
honest, brave soul could have made this discovery, for 
tradition stood like a lion in the way, and prejudice dis- 
couraged investigation. But Froebel sought truth for 
truth's sake, fearlessly defying tradition and ignoring 
prejudice, and years of experiment convinced him that 
the greatest measure of success in infant training was 
surely attainable through women. That this discovery, 
so simple, yet so big with grand possibilities, was not made 
earlier is due to the fact that there is so little really 
independent thought, so little investigation free from 
the trammels of prejudice. Now that a great mind has 
pointed the way it is obvious that ]N"ature, having design- 
ed that the years of early childhood should be spent 
with the mother, must have also designed that women 
should be the chief educators of children. And it fol- 
lows, of course, that the education of women is more 
important than that of men, since it is from them that 
children receive their first impressions, and since first 
impressions are indelibly stamj^ed upon the infant mind, 
giving it form, color, and substance. 

In confiding to women this great trust, Froebel imposed 
upon them an incalculable weight of responsibility. It 
comprehends the destiny of the human race, involving 
the problem of its progress or retrogression. 

A common first conception of the kindergarten is — 
a convenient asylum for the children of mothers who 
desire to be relieved of their care. A more thoughtful 
study reveals its poetry and sentiment, the innocent joy 
of the assembly of pupils, the harmony of song, and the 
grace of motion in the games and dances. A final, large 
view discloses the true educational principle. The kin- 
dergarten is more clearly comprehended after studying 



- THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN A PRIME NECESSITY. 129 

tlie manual training school — moving from the effect to 
the cause ; for as the child is father of the man, so the 
kindergarten is father of the manual training school. 
The kindergarten comes first in the order of develop- 
ment, and leads logically to the manual training school. 
The same principle underlies both. In both it is sought 
to generate power by dealing with actualities. The 
corner-stone of both is object-teaching — teaching through 
things instead of through signs of things. This princi- 
ple, common to both, is the concrete as opposed to the 
abstract. The tlieory of both is that, in teaching, ideas 
should never be isolated from the objects they represent. 
The kindergarten and the manual training school, being 
one in principle, should have common methods of in- 
struction, varied sufficiently to adapt them to the whole 
range of school life. 



130 MANUAL TRAINING. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. • 

Mental Impulses are often Vicious ; but the Exertion of Physical 
Power in the Arts is always Beneficent — hence Manual Training 
tends to correct vicious mental Impulses. — Every mental Impres- 
sion produces a moral Effect. — All Training is Moral as well as 
Mental. — Selfishness is total Depravity; but Selfishness has been 
Deified under the name of Pfudence. — Napoleon an Example of 
Selfishness. — The End of Selfishness is Disaster; but Prevailing 
Systems of Education promote Selfishness. — The Modern City an 
Illustration of Selfishness. — The Ancient City. — Existing Systems 
of Education Negatively "Wrong.— Manual Training supplies the 
lacking Element. — The Objective must take the Place of the Sub- 
jective in Education. — Words without Acts are as dead as Faith 
without Works. 

Education, or training, has two immediate and contin- 
uous effects — the development of innate mental qualities 
or aptitudes and the formation of character. In an or- 
derly logical system of training the development vs^ould 
be harmonious, and the resulting formation of character 
symmetrical. These are, however, ideal conditions re- 
quiring a perfect system of training, and students free 
from the perversions and deformities growing out of 
the law of heredity. But under any system of training 
there is progress — development and character formation. 
The aphorism, "An idle brain is the devil's workshop," 
expresses only a half-truth. What it means is this : if 
the brain is not well employed it will be ill employed ; or 
if it is not occupied with good thoughts it will be occu- 
pied with evil thoughts. The mind of man is never at 



THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TKAINING. 131 

rest, in equilibrium, even in a state of barbarism. Indeed 
this is obvious, since all civilizations are growths sprung 
from states of savagery. But the barbaric line once pass- 
ed, develo^Dment is greatly accelerated, assuming with the 
evolution of the ages the form of a geometrical progres- 
sion. The distinguishing characteristic of modern civiliza- 
tion is action. In so far as this action, which may be called 
the impulsive force of the spirit of the age, is natural and 
orderly, it constitutes an aid to the processes of educa- 
tion ; if otherwise, it is obstructive, hindering them. 

The law of mental develojDment is not the exact cor- 
relative of the law of physical development. The direct 
aim of physical training is muscular power; of mental 
training the aim is mental power and rectitude. Physi- 
cal power is not intrinsically vicious ; it becomes vicious 
only when exerted under a vicious intellectual impulse. 
But this is not necessarily true of mental power; for 
mental power may be gained quite apart from the ele- 
ment of rectitude, in which event it is vicious, and may 
be exerted in scorn of the accepted standards of right, 
truth, and justice. As a matter of fact it is often so ex- 
erted, and the fact that it is so exerted accounts for the 
crimes of individuals, the faults of society, and the errors 
of governments. The constitution of mental power is, 
then, complex, while that of physical power is simple. If 
mental power consists of sense perception or understand- 
ing and moral perception or rectitude in due proportion, 
the issue is a noble character; but if rectitude is wanting, 
the issue is an evil character. If, on the other hand, there 
is no interference with the orderly development of phys- 
ical power, the issue of its exertion is always skill — skill 
applied in innumerable forms to the uses of man. Only 
through a mental impulse rendered vicious by the ab- 

6* 



133 MANUAL TRAINING. 

sence of the element of rectitude can physical power bo 
diverted from its naturally beneficent miBsion. 

It follows that most of the evils of civilization flow 
from an ill-balanced mental constitution — a mental consti- 
tution wanting the essential element of rectitude. Since, 
then, mental development, under certain widely prevail- 
ing conditions, is so prolific of evil, and physical devel- 
opment or skill so universally prolific of good, it is ob- 
vious that the beneficent infiuence of the latter should, 
if practicable, be brought to bear upon the former in ed- 
ucational systems. In a word, may not the two systems 
of training be so connected in the schools as to cause 
the manual to react upon the mental, with the eifect of 
greatly strengthening the ethical side of the mind? 

It is not essential to our purpose to inquire whether a 
perfect system of education, and hence an ideal state of 
society, is possible. It will be sufiicient if we are able to 
show wherein pervailing systems of education can be im- 
proved. 

In a former chapter we sought to show that the use of 
mechanical tools stimulates the intellect ; in the present 
chapter it is our purpose to endeavor to show that man- 
ual training tends to the promotion of rectitude, to the 
up-building of character. 

For purposes of culture the mind consists of divisions, 
as the body consists of members. It is susceptible of 
development in the line of the application of mental 
training, as any member of the body is susceptible of de- 
velopment through physical training or use. For exam- 
ple, the memory may be invigorated by the constant ap- 
plication of certain kinds of mental training, as the arm 
is strengthened by the constant use of the sledge-hammer. 
But if the mental training which stimulates the memory 



THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 133 

is applied to the neglect of other lines of training, the 
memory will be invigorated at the expense of some other 
faculty of the mind, as the excessive use of the sledge- 
hammer strengthens the arm at the cost of other members 
of the body. In the one case the mind, and in the other 
the body will be deformed. In the case of the sledge- 
hammer training the muscles of the arm will stand out 
like wliip-cords, while those of the legs will shrivel and 
become attenuated. In the case of the training of the 
memory that faculty will show an abnormal develop- 
ment, while some other faculty, as the power of ratioci- 
nation, probably, will become weak. 

It is not necessary in this connection to inquire into 
the origin of moral sentiments, or to consider the rival 
theories on the subject. However men may differ as 
between the two schools of moral philosophers — the 
sentimentalists and the utilitarians — they will agree that 
the moral side of the mind, so to speak, consists of divi- 
sions like the mental side ; that these divisions are the 
source, respectively, of good and evil tendencies, and that 
these tendencies are susceptible of cultivation; that the 
evil may be restrained and the good developed, and vice 
versa, l^or will it be disputed that there is such a 
blending of the moral with the mental nature in the 
mind of man as to render any consideration of the sub- 
ject irrational and incomplete which does not compre- 
hend both, and treat them, practically, as one and the 
same. Man is so constituted, and his relations to society 
are such, that every mental impression he receives pro- 
duces a moral cifect, the character of which is, of course, 
largely dependent upon the accepted standards of right, 
truth, and justice. Hence all scholastic training is both 
mental and moral. It is moral as well as mental, whether 



134 MANUAL TRAINING. 

the instructor will it so or not ; and that it is moral is 
well, since it is obviously true, as Galton pertinently re- 
marks, that " Great men have usually high moral nat- 
ures, and are affectionate and reverential^ inasmuch as 
mere brain without heart is insufficient to achieve emi- 
nence." 

Selfishness is the arch enemy of virtue ; from it all 
forms of immorality spring, and its last analysis is total 
depravity. But literature, which is the fruitage of edu- 
cation, is full of maxims in honor of selfishness. Said the 
Dauphin to the French king, " Self-love, my liege, is not 
so vile a sin as self-neglecting." Said Herbert, " Help 
thyself and God will help thee." " A j)enny saved is as 
good as a penny earned," said Franklin ; and the grasp- 
ing " Yankee " stretches the maxim a point in saying to 
his son, "Make money honestly if you can, but make 
money." 

The folloM'ing, also, are current maxims : " Every man 
is the architect of his own fortune;" "Every tub must 
stand upon its own bottom ;" " In the race of life the 
devil takes the hindmost ;" " Look to the main chance ;" 
and, " Keep what you haye got, and catch what you can." 
To the same purpose is the famous old aphorism of which 
Napoleon the First was so fond, " God always favors the 
heaviest battalions." Emerson declared that jSTajJoleon 
represented "the spirit of modern commerce, of money, 
and material power," and he certainly was the very in- 
carnation of selfishness.* He had a hand of iron, and he 

* " ' God has granted,' says the Korau, ' to everj- people a prophet 
in its own tongue.' Paris, and London, and New York, the spirit of 
commerce, of monej^ and material power, were also to have their 
prophet ; and Bonaparte was qualified and sent. Everj- one of the 
million readers of anccdoteg, or memoirs, or lives of Xapolcon de- 



THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 135 

laid it heavily on all who opposed him. If it became 
necessary to imprison his enemies he imprisoned them ; 
if it became necessary to kill them he cut off their heads. 
When charged with the commission of great crimes, he 
retorted, " Men of my stamp do not commit crimes !" 
" I have always marched with the opinion of great masses 
and events," he exclaimed, with the insolence of a butcher 
exhibiting his bloody hands. Old-fashioned codes of 
morals were for those who opposed his plans, not for 
him. But the end of selfishness is disaster. It is as 
dangerous to assume to rise above moral laws as to sink 
below them ; in the one case they crush, and in the other 
they undermine. " The half " is, after all, " more than 
the whole," for "the half" may be retained, but "the 
whole " is sure to slip from the fingers of grasping ava- 
rice. ISTapoleon, who defied both God and man, expiated 
his crimes on a rock in mid-ocean. There, whining, pro- 
testing, and prating of injustice, he died miserably, a 
colossal example of the folly of selfishness. 

Selfishness seeks to wring from society a support with- 
out giving to it an equivalent return. What industry 
creates and saves to society, selfishness seeks to misap- 
propriate to its own use ; hence selfishness is in conflict 
with the true spirit of civilization, which is the compact 
of all to protect each in his rights. Selfishness caused 
the destruction of all the governments of ancient times, 
and it has been the cause of all the revolutions of modern 
times. There can be no stability in government until 
altruism takes the place of selfishness in the world's code 

lights in the page, because he studies in it his own history." — " Rep- 
resentative Men," p. 221. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co., 1858. 

It would be impossible more severely to arraign existing educa- 
tional methods; for men are what education makes them. 



136 MANUAL TRAINING. 

of etliics. The sole condition of the stability of the State 
is a disposition on the part of its people to conform to 
justice and correct moral principles in all social trans- 
actions. 

Any system of education that does not tend to produce 
a state of morals conformable to this high standard is not 
merely defective ; it is radically wrong, and therefore 
positively vicious. The true purpose of education is the 
liarmonious development of all the powers of the man — 
mental, moral, and physical. But harmony in a selfish 
character is impossible, for selfishness is blind of one 
eye, so to speak ; it considers only one side of a cause — 
the side that relates to its interest, regardless of all other 
interests. Let not prudence be confounded with selfish- 
ness. Prudence and selfishness are as wide apart as the 
poles. Extreme prudence is perfectly consistent with 
entire rectitude, while extreme selfishness is the syno- 
nym of depravity ; hence the first step in education is to 
eliminate selfishness from the mind, and the next step is 
to put rectitude in its place. 

Prevailing systems of education no doubt promote the 
spirit of selfishness :* witness the cliaracter of the struggle 
for self-aggrandizement. It is more intense and more 
widely extended than at any period of the world's his- 

* "In small, undeveloped societies, where for ages complete peace 
lias continued, there exists nothing like what we call Government ; 
no coercive agency, but mere honorary headship, if any headship at 
all. In these exceptional communities, unaggressive, and from special 
causes unaggressed upon, there is so little deviation from the virtues 
of truthfulness, honesty, justice, and generosity, that nothing beyond 
an occasional expression of public opinion by informally assembled 
elders is needful."— "Political Institutions," Tf«l[ 437, 573 ; "The Sins 
of Legislators," in "The Man versus the State," p. 44. By Herbert 
Spencer. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 



THE MOEAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TKAINING. 137 

torj, Tliat it is more intense is shown by the more and 
more rapid concentration of populations in cities, wliere 
the struggle assumes its most intense form, and exhibits 
itself in its most threatening aspect. 

Cities have always been plague-spots on the body pol- 
itic, and they are not less so now than in ancient times. 
It is in cities that all dangers to the State originate ; 
and the sole, fundamental reason why cities are a stand- 
ing menace to the integrity of the social compact is the 
fact that they are dominated by selfishness. It is in 
cities that the unnatural, unwholesome desire to live 
without labor, to live by speculative enterprises, becomes 
a consuming passion, inoculating with a deeper and dark- 
er degree of selfishness an ever-widening circle of people ; 
and selfishness at last inevitably leads to anarchy. It 
leads to anarchy and chaos because both classes of society 
become depraved — the rich and powerful through indo- 
lence and sensual indulgence, and the poor and wretched 
through ignorance and privation and their attendant 
mean vices. 

The modern city is the despair of the modern political 
economist. It grows relatively faster in population than 
the rural district, and it would be the extreme of opti- 
mism to declare that it grows better. It does not matter 
that the city is the centre of learning, the nursery of all 
the active intelligences M^hicli are achieving fresh tri- 
umphs daily in every department of science, literature, 
and art. It is also the centre of vice, and the nursery 
of every variety of crime. 

The difficulty — nay, the despair — of the situation is 
not relieved or mitigated by the undisputed fact that the 
ancient city was much worse morally and politically than 
the modern city, and hence that as between Rome and 



138 MANUAL TRAINING. 

Chicago there is an immense moral and political advan- 
tage in favor of the latter. If Chicago is retrograding 
morally and politically, what is to prevent it from sinking 
to the moral and political status of Rome under the in- 
famous emperors of the period of its decadence ? If the 
modern American city is rapidly degenerating, both as a 
moral force and a political institution, what is to arrest 
its downward progress ? What influence is to intervene 
to reverse the order and nature of its development ? 

Rome, in the very agonies of political dissolution, pos- 
sessed all the then known arts, a splendid literature, and 
a school of philosophy whose ethical code was more lofty, 
if less human, than that of the new system which was 
struggling to replace the old. That the inconceivably 
atrocious gladiatorial games should have developed into 
such huge proportions in conjunction with the sublime 
moral teachings of Seneca, Plutarch, Marcus Aurelius, 
and a score of others, is the despair of students of Roman 
history. While they taught, emperors and people alike 
feasted their eyes on bloody orgies of men and beasts, 
on scenes of the most horrible barbarity. Caligula took 
special delight in watching the countenances of the dy- 
ing, "for he had learned to take an artistic pleasure in 
observing the variations of their agony." Criminals 
dressed in the skins of wild beasts were thrown to bulls 
which were maddened with red-hot irons. " Four hundred 
bears were killed in a single day under Caligula ; three 
hundred on another day under Claudius. Under Kero, 
four hundred tigers fought with bulls and elephants ; four 
hundred bears and three hundred lions were slaughtered 
by his soldiers. In a single day, at the dedication of the 
Colosseum by Titus, five thousand animals perished. Un- 
der Trajan the games continued for one hundred and 



THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 139 

twenty-three successive days. Lions, tigers, rhinoceroses, 
hippopotami, giraffes, bulls, stags, even crocodiles and ser- 
pents, were employed to give novelty to the spectacle." 

And yet tlie civilization that produced these games 
gave to the world forever the moral precepts of the stoics 
and philosojihers. Cicero had maintained the doctrine 
of the universal brotherhood of man. "iN'ature ordains," 
he says, " that a man should wish the good of every man, 
whoever he may be, for this very reason : that he is a 
man." Menander maintained that "man should deem 
nothing human foreign to his interest." Lucan looked 
forward to the time Avhen " the human race will cast 
aside its weapons, and all nations learn to love." In a 
letter on the death of his slaves Pliny exhibited feelings 
of strong human affection, and Plutarch, in a letter of 
consolation to his wife on the death of his daughter, left 
a touching record of the tenderness of his heart in the 
recital of a simple trait of the child : " She desired her 
nurse to press even her dolls to the breast. She was so 
loving that she wished everything that gave her pleasure 
to share in the best that she had." Says Seneca, " The 
whole universe which you see around you, comprising all 
things both divine and human, is one. We are members 
of one great body." And Epictetus, " You are a citizen 
and a part of the world. The duty of a citizen is in 
nothing to consider his own interest distinct from that 
of others." 

The contrast presented by these noble moral sentiments 
to the actual life of tlie Eoinan people is truly startling. 
It is plain that the profession of lofty moral sentiments 
by a class, tlie possession of higli literary attainments, 
and an extensive acquaintance Avith the arts, do not al- 
ways afford protection against national degradation and 



140 MANUAL TKAINING. 

decay. Kor is it by any means certain that tlie Christian 
religion is destined to effect more in this regard than the 
pagan code of morals. Rome embraced religion, but its 
conversion was powerless to avert political and commer- 
cial destruction. 

The modern city has for guides the example of all the 
ancient civilizations and political and moral systems, and 
in addition it has in its most vital form the Christian 
system of morals and faith. But notwithstanding all 
these helps it is politically corrupt and morally depraved. 
Its streets are the scenes of vice scarcely less revolting 
than those of ancient Home. It harbors an army of 
criminals which grows with its growth, and is without 
any systematized effort either to reform or abolish it. 
Indeed this army of criminals is constantly reinforced in 
an increasing ratio to the whole population from the ranks 
of the rising generation, which is to a degree enforced to 
ignorance by the inadequacy of educational facilities. "^^ 
Its power to accumulate wealth is increasing, but this 
power is confined to relatively fewer hands, and this is 
one of the most alarming features of the situation. For 
the increase of ignorance, vice, and crime is sure to keep 
pace with the abnormal growth of estates, stimulated to 
the highest degree by dishonest business practices and 
gigantic schemes of speculation. 

It does not follow because prevailing methods of edu- 



* In support of the truth of these propositions it is sufficient merely 
to allude to the late disclosures by the Pall 3IaU Gazette of the prev- 
alence of revolting crimes in London, England. It is also pertinent 
to remai'k the attitude of hostility maintained by the higher classes 
(so called) of the English people towards the editor of the journal in 
which the disclosures were made, as significant of an alarming de- 
generation of the moral sense of the British public. 



THE MORAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TRAINING. 141 

cation promote the spirit of selfishness, and hence contain 
the seeds of social and moral decay, that they are wholly 
vicious; but it does follow, if they are not positively 
wrong, that they are negatively wrong. Let us assume 
that they are only negatively wrong, that they lack an 
essential element in all mental and moral training — the 
manual element; and let us try to discover what would 
be the effect of the incorporation of this element into 
the curriculum of the schools. 

A system of education consisting exclusively of men- 
tal exercises promotes selfishness because such training is 
subjective. Its effects flow inward ; they relate to self. 
All mental acquirements become a part of self, and so 
remain forever, unless they are transmuted into things 
through the agency of the hand. 

It is through the hand alone that the mind finally im- 
presses itself upon matter. In other words, thought and 
speech must be incarnate in things or they are dead. 
The orator appeals to the people to strike for their 
rights ; the people rend the air with shouts and subside 
into silence. The orator cries, " To Arms !" Again the 
people shout, and again subside into silence. The ora- 
tor's thoughts are of carnage, his words of flames, but 
they are as dead as if never conceived and uttered be- 
cause no hand is raised to embody them in deeds. 

Manual training, on the other hand, promotes altruism 
because it is objective. Its effects flow outward ; they 
relate not to self but to the human race. The skilled 
hand confers benefits upon man, and each benefit so 
conferred exerts the natural reflex moral influence of 
a good act upon the mind of the benefactor. ■•^' 

* "And now I would point out how the occupations of the worli- 



142 MANUAL TRAINING. 

Morality is not a mere sentiment, a barren ideality. It 
is true there is a negative morality which consists in 
refraining from the commission of wrongful acts. But 
the morality of the great ethical teachers is positive ; it 
consists in doing. Christ said, " Inasmuch as ye have 
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
have done it unto me." Words without acts are as dead 
as faith without works. Paul said, " Though 1 have all 
faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not 
charity, I am nothing." 

Morality is a vital principle whoso exemplification con- 
sists in doing justice; and justice is that virtue "which 
consists in giving to every one what is his due; practical 
conformity to the laws and to principles of rectitude in 



shop and the atelier combined tend to establish in the mind of the 
pupil an unselfish and impersonal standard of valuation which will 
prepare him admirably for the truer moral estimate of life. For days, 
and perhaps for weeks, he labors to convert a formless material into 
a form illustrating mathematical truth or aesthetic harmony. He 
undergoes protracted toil, and meets perhaps with many failures and 
disappointments, in order to be rewarded at last — by what ? Simply 
by realizing in some degree that perfectness of the object which he 
aimed at from the beginning. His work is devoid of any pecuniary 
value. It is a mere typical form. Its worth consists in being true 
or in being beautiful. And a habit is thus formed of judging things 
in general according to their intrinsic rather than their superficial 
qualities. Gradually, and almost insensibl3% the analogy of the work 
performed on outward objects Avill be applied to inward experience. 
. . . Thus while he is shaping the typical objects which the instructor 
proposes to him as a task, while he pores silently, persisteutlj^, and 
lovingly over these objects, reaching success by dint of gradual ap- 
proximation, he is, at the same time, shaping his own character, and 
a tendency of mind is created from which will eventually result the 
loftiest and purest morality." — Prof. Felix Adler, Princeton Bevieio, 
March, 1882. 



THE MOKAL EFFECT OF MANUAL TKAINING, 143 

the dealings of men with each other ; honesty, integrity 
in commerce or mutual intercourse." It follows that 
morality can no more be acquired by memorizing a series 
of maxims than the art of using tools can be acquired by 
studying the laws of mechanics and of mechanism. 



144 MANUAL THAIISIING. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE MIND AND THE HAND. 

The Miud and the Hand are Allies ; the Mind speculates, the Hand 
tests its Speculations in Things. — The Hand explodes the Errors of 
the Mind— it searches after Truth and finds it in Things.— Mental 
Errors are subtile ; they elude us, but the False in Things stands self- 
exposed.— The Hand is the Mind's Moral Rudder.— The Organ of 
Touch the most Wonderful of the Senses ; all the Others are Pas- 
sive ; it alone is Active. —Sir Charles Bell's Discovery of a " Muscular 
Sense."— Dr. Henry Maudsley on the Muscular Sense.— The Hand 
influences the Brain. — Connected Thought impossible without Lan- 
guage, and Language dependent upon Objects; and all Artificial 
Objects are the Work of the Hand.— Progress is therefore the Im- 
print of the Hand upon Matter in Art. — The Hand is nearer the 
Brain than are the Eye and the Ear. — The Marvellous Works of 
the Hand. 

A PURELY mental acquirement is a theorem — some- 
thing to be proved. As to whether the tlieorem is sus- 
ceptible of proof is always a question until the doubt is 
solved by the act of doing. Hence Comenius's definition 
of education — " Let those things that have to be done be 
learned by doing them" — is profoundly philosophical, 
since nothing can be fully learned without the final act 
of doing, owing to the fact of the incompleteness of all 
theoretical knowledge. 

The mind and the hand are natural allies. The mind 
speculates, the hand tests the speculations of the mind by 
tlie law of practical application. The hand explodes the 
errors of the mind, for it inquires, so to speak, by the act 
of doinc:, whether or not a £>iven tlieorem is demonstra- 



THE MIND AND THE HAND. 145 

ble in the form of a problem. The hand is, therefore, 
not only constantly searching after the truth, but is cor 
stantly finding it.* It is possible for the mind to indulge 
in false logic, to make the worse appear the better rea- 
son, without instant exposure. But for the hand to work 
falsely is to produce a misshapen thing — tool or machine 
— which in its construction gives the lie to its maker. 
Thus the hand that is false to truth, in the very act 
publishes the verdict of its own guilt, exposes itself to 
contempt and derision, convicts itself of unskilfulness or 
of dishonesty. 

There is no escaping the logical conclusion of an in- 
vestigation into the relations existing between the mind 
and the hand. The hand is scarcely less the guide than 
the agent of the mind. It steadies the mind. It is 
the mind's moral rudder, its balance - wheel. It is the 
mind's monitor. It is constantly aj^pealing to the mind, 
by its acts, to " hew to the line, let the chijjs fly where 
they may." 

Dr. George Wilson says, " In many respects the organ 
of touch, as embodied in the hand, is the most wonderful 
of the senses. The organs of the other senses are pas- 
sive ; the organ of touch alone is active. . . . The hand 
selects what it shall touch, and touches what it pleases. 
It puts away from it the things which it hates, and beck- 
ons towards it the things which it desires. . . . More- 



* "In other cases, even by the strictest attention, it is not possible 
to give complete or strict truth in words. We could not, by any 
number of words, describe the color of a ribbon so as to enable a 
mercer to match it without seeing it. But an ' accurate ' colorist can 
convey the required intelligence at once, with a tint on paper." — 
' ' The Laws of Feesole, " Vol. I. , p. 7. By John Ruskin, LL. D. New 
York: John Wilev & Sons. 1879. 



146 - MANUAL TRAINING. 

over, the hand cares not only for its own wants, but when 
the other organs of the senses are rendered useless takes 
their duties upon it. . . . The blind man reads with 
his hand, the dumb man speaks with it ; it plucks the 
flower for the nostril, and supplies the tongue with ob- 
jects of taste. ISTot less amply does it give expression to 
the wit, the genius, the will, the power of man. Put a 
sword into it and it will fight, a plough and it will till, a 
harp and it will play, a pencil and it will paint, a pen and 
it will speak. What, moreover, is a ship, a railway, a 
light-house, or a palace — what indeed is a whole city, a 
whole continent of cities, all the cities of the globe, nay 
the very globe itself, so far as man has changed it, but 
the work of that giant hand with which the human race, 
acting as one mighty man, has executed his will."''"" 

There is a philosophical exj)lanation of the versatility 
of the hand so graphically portrayed in the foregoing 
passage, and it is found in Sir Charles Bell's great discov- 
ery of a " muscular sense." The principle of this discov- 
ery is that " there are distinct nerves of sensation and of 
motion or volition — one set bearing inessages from the 
body to the brain, and the other from the brain or will 
to the body. " 

In his work on the hand, after reviewing the line of 
argument which led to his discovery, Sir Charles says, 
"By such arguments I have been in the habit of show- 
ing that we possess a muscular sense, and that without it 
we could have no guidance of the frame. We could not 
command our muscles in standing, far less in walking, 
leaping, or running, had we not a perception of the con- 

■" "The Five Gateways of Knowledge," p. 121. By George "Wil- 
son, M.D., F.R.S.E. Loudon: Macmillau & Co., 1881. 



THE MIND AND THE HAND. 147 

dition of the muscles previous to the exercise of the will. 
And as for the hand, it is not more the freedom of its 
action wliich constitutes its perfection, than the knowl- 
edge which we have of these motions, and our conse- 
quent abilit}^ to direct it with the utmost precision."^" 

On the influence of the muscular sense. Dr. Henrj 
Maudsley has these pertinent observations : 

" Those who would degrade the body, in order, as they 
imagine, to exalt the mind, should consider more deeply 
than they do the importance of our muscular expressions 
of feeling. Tlie manifold shades and kinds of expression 
which the lips present — their gibes, gambols, and flashes 
of merriment ; the quick language of a quivering nostril ; 
the varied waves and ripples of beautiful emotion which 
play on the human countenance, with the spasms of pas- 
sion that disflgure it — all which we take such pains to 
embody in art — are simply effects of muscular action. 
. . . Fix the countenance in the pattern of a particular 
emotion — in a look of anger, of wonder, or of scorn — and 
the emotion whose appearance is thus imitated will not fail 
to be aroused. And if we try, while the features are fixed 
in the expression of one passion, to call up in the mind a 
quite different one, we shall find it impossible to do so. 
. . . "VVe perceive, then, that the muscles are not alone the 
machinery by which the mind acts upon the world, but 
that tlieir actions are essential elements in our mental op- 
erations. The superiority of tlie human over the animal 
mind seems to be essentially connected with the great- 
er variety of muscular action of which man is capable ; 

* "The Hand : its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evinc- 
ing Design," p. 151. By Sir Charles Bell, K.G.IL, F.RS., L. and E. 
Harper & Brothers, 1864. 

7 



148 MANUAL TRAINING. 

were he deprived of the infinitely varied movements of 
hands, tongue, larynx, lips, and face, in which he is so far 
ahead of the animals, it is probable that he would be no 
better than an idiot, notwithstanding he might have a 
normal development of brain."''^ 

It is through the muscular sense that the hand influ- 
ences the brain. According to Sir Charles the hand acts 
first. It telegraphs, for example, that it is ready to grasp 
the chisel or the sledge-hammer, or seize the pen, where- 
upon the brain telegraphs back precise directions as to 
the work to be done. These messages to and fro are 
lightning-like flashes of intelligence, which blend or fuse 
all the powers of the man, both mental and physical, and 
inform and inspire the mass with vital force.-f- 

Through constant use the muscular sense is sharpened 
to a marvellous degree of fineness, and the hand, perme- 
ated by it, forms habits which react powerfully upon the 
mind. If, now, during the period of childhood and youth, 
the hand is exercised in the useful and beautiful arts, its 
muscular sense will be developed normally, or in the di- 



* "Body and Mind," p. 33. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New 
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 

f The goldsmith's art was one of the finest among the ancients, 
and so continued far into the Middle Ages. The cutting of cameos, 
for example, required the highest skill and produced the most ex- 
quisite results. Mr. Ruskin calls attention to the fact that "all the 
great early Italian masters of painting and sculpture, without ex- 
ception, began by being goldsmiths' apprentices;" and that "they 
felt themselves so indebted to, and formed by, the master crafts- 
man who had mainly disciplined tJicir fingers, whether in work on 
gold or marble, that they practically considered him their father, 
and took Ms name rather than their own." — "Fors Clavigera," 
Part III., p. 291. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John 
Wiley & Sons, 1881. 



THE MIND AND THE HAND. 149 

rection of rectitude, and the reflex effect of this growth 
upon the mind will be beneficent. 

It is thus that the trained hand comes at last to foresee, 
as it were, that a false proposition is surely destined to 
be exploded. The habit of rectitude gives it prescience. 
It invariably discovers, sooner or later, that a false prop- 
osition, when embodied in wood or iron, becomes a con- 
spicuous abortion, involving in disgrace both the designer 
and the maker. A false proposition in the abstract may 
be rendered very alluring ; a false proposition in the 
concrete is always hideous. One of the chief effects of 
manual training is, then, the discovcv and development 
of truth ; and truth, in its broadest siguitication, is merely 
another name for justice ; and justice is the synonym of 
morality. 

It has been shown that thought and speech are dead 
unless embodied in things. It may also be asserted with 
confidence that man would lose the power of speech al- 
most wholly if his words should cease to be realized in 
things. Mr. Darwin declares that " a complex train of 
thought can no more be carried on without the aid of 
words, whether spoken or silent, than a long calculation 
without the use of figures or algebra.""-'^ And Dr. Mauds- 
ley says, " But neither these instances nor the case of 
Laura Bridgman can be used to prove that it is possible 
to think without any means of physical expression. On 
the contrary the evidence is all the other way. The deaf 
and dumb man invents his own signs, which he draM'S 
from the nature of objects, seizing the most striking out- 
line, or the principal movement of an action, and using 



* " The Descent of Man," p. 88. By Charles Darwin, M. A. New 
York : D. Appleton & Co., 1881. 



150 MANUAL TRAINING. 

them afterwards as tokens to represent the objects. The 
deaf and dumb gesticulate also as they think ; and Laura 
Bridgman's fingers worked, making the initial movements 
for letters of the finger alphabet, not only during her 
working thoughts, but in her dreams. If we substitute 
for 'names' the motor intuitions, or take care to com- 
prise in language all the modes of expressing thoughts, 
whether verbal, vocal writing, or gesture language, then 
it is unquestionable that thought is impossible without 
language."* 

As connected thoughts are impossible without words, 
or signs of words, so words are dependent upon objects 
for their existence. Says Dr. Maudsley, " Words cannot 
attain to definiteness save as living outgrowths of reali- 
ties."f And Heyse says, " Thought is not even present 
to the thinker till he has set it forth out of himself." 

It follows that language has its origin not less in ex- 
ternal objects than in the mind. Objects make impres- 
sions upon the mind through the senses, and words serve 
as the means of preserving a record of such impressions 
and of communicating them to other minds. If, now, 
the mind should cease to receive impressions, language 
would no longer be required, since there would be noth- 
ing to express ; and the occasion for the use of language 
ceasing to exist, the power of sj)eech would ultimately be 
lost. The power of speech, then, depends upon a con- 



* "Pliysiology of the Mind," p. 480. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. 
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 

f " I therefore declare my conviction," says Max Miiller, "whether 
right or wrong, as explicitly as possible, that thought iu one sense 
of the word, i.e., in reasoning, is impossible without language." — 
"Physiology of the Mind," p. 480. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. 
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 



THE MINI) AND THE HAND. 151 

tiniioiis succession of impressions made upon the mind 
by its contact, through the senses, with matter in its 
various forms, whether in nature or in art. 

It may also be claimed that the i')ower of speech de- 
pends almost entirely upon the endless succession of 
fresh objects presented to the mind by the hand. These 
form the subject as well as the occasion of speech. If 
the hand should cease to make new things, new words 
would cease to be required. The principal changes in 
language arise out of new discoveries in science and new 
inventions in art, each fresh discovery of science giving 
rise to many new things in art. Art and science react 
upon each other.* The growth of a State, its advance 
in the scale of civilization, depends upon progress in the 
practical arts. Hence the fact that, when a State ceases 
to advance, its language ceases to grow, becomes station- 
ary, stagnates. In such a State there would be no occa- 
sion for new words. If a constantly diminishing number 
of objects were presented to the mind, speech would 
become less and less necessary. If no new objects were 
presented, no fresh impressions upon the mind would be 
made, and speech would degenerate into a mere iteration. 
If the hands should cease to labor in the arts, should 
cease to make things, should cease to plant and gather, 
the scope of speech would be still further restricted, 
would be confined to an expression of the wants of sav- 
ages subsisting on the native fruits of field and forest. 

It comes to this, that progress can find expression only 

* "And the great advances in science have uniform!}^ corresponded 
with the invention o.f some instrument by which the power of the 
senses has been increased, or the range of action extended." — "Phys- 
iology of the Mind," p. 8. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New York: 
D. Appleton&Co., 1883. 



153 MANUAL TRAINING. 

in the concrete. Guttenberg had an idea that he could em- 
ploy movable types in the production of books. Suppose 
he had been content with the mere promulgation of his 
theory in words, and that those who came after him had 
been similarly content? There would have been no 
printing-presses down to the present time. Suppose that 
Watt and Stephenson and Fulton had been content with 
the declaration, in w^ords, of the discoveries they made 
in regard to the application of the power of steam to 
practical purposes, and that those who came after them 
had been similarly content? There would have been 
neither railways, nor steamships, nor steam-driven ma- 
chinery of any kind down to the present time. 

As w^ords are essential to the processes of thought, so 
objects are essential to words or living speech. And as 
all objects made by man owe their existence to the hand, 
it follows that the hand exerts an incalculable influence 
upon the mind, and so constitutes the most potent agency 
in the work of civilization. It was not without good 
reason that Anaxagoras characterized man as the wisest 
of animals because of his having hands. And what is it 
to be wise ? To be wise is " to have the power of dis- 
cerning and judging correctly, or of discriminating be- 
tween what is true and what is false ; between what is 
fit and proper and wdiat is improper." The hand is used 
as the synonym of wisdom because it is only in the con- 
crete that the false is sure of detection, and it is through 
the hand alone that ideas are realized in things.'''" Again 
we have the hand as the discoverer of truth. 



* "Let him [the youth] once learn to take a straight shaving off a 
plank, or draw a fine curve without faltering, or la}^ a brick level in 
its mortar, and he has learned a multitude of other matters which no 



THE MIITD AND THE HAND. 153 

The assertion of the majesty of the hand by the Ionic 
philosopher of the fonrth centr.rj B. C. contained the 
germ of the manual training idea of this latter part of 
the nineteenth century. Anaxagoras was unconsciously, 
no doubt, struggling towards the light, towards the in- 
ductive method of investigation, towards the sole avenue 
through which it is possible to study the mind, namely, 
through the body. The ignorance of the ancients on the 
subject of physiology was so dense as to leave them no 
resource save speculative philosophy. The progress 
made in the study of anatomy, and organic and inorganic 
chemistry at Alexandria, was, however, considerable. The 
foundations of a systematic physiology were being secure- 
ly laid by Hippocrates, Herophilus, and their compeers of 
the medical profession, and tlie way was thus being open- 
ed to an intelligent study of the mind. It is highly prob- 
able that this growing disposition to investigate things, 
together with the increasing importance to civilization 
of the useful arts, would soon have reacted destructively 
upon the speculative philosophy of the time had not a 
series of national disasters, involving the fall of Greece 
and E-ome, overwhelmed both arts and philosophy in one 
common ruin. 

From the fall of Kome to the time of Bacon specu- 
lative philosophy dominated the world. Progress dates 
from the beginning of the seventeenth century, but it 
was very slow until within a hundred years. Philosophy 
has now, however, found a scientific basis. Instead of 
speculating about the " theory of vitality," it concerns 
itself with " the natural phenomena of living bodies, so 



lips of man could ever leach him." — "Time and Tide," p. 145. By 
John Ruskin, LL.D. New York : John Wiley & Sons, 1883. 



154 MANUAL TRAINING. 

far as they are appreciable by the human senses and in- 
telligence." 

But the schools have not moved forward with events. 
Their methods are unscientific ; they are still dominated 
by the mediaeval ideas of speculative philosophy. One 
of the ablest educators in this country has well observed 
that "there has been very little change in the ideas 
which have controlled our methods of education, and 
these ideas were formed something like four hundred 
years ago. Like nearly all the great agencies of modern 
civilization, the established system of education dates 
from the Renaissance, and the direction given to the 
schools at that time has been followed with but slight 
modification ever since."'^ 

The justice of this arraignment of the schools for ex- 
treme conservatism is shown by the remark of a promi- 
nent educator who opposes the incorporation of manual 
training in the curriculum of the public schools. He 
says, " Some even go so far as to regard the fingers as a 
new avenue to the brain, and think that great pedagogic 
advantages will be given by the new method, so that 
boys may make equal attainments in arithmetic, read- 
ing, and grammar in less time. . . . They [teachers] will 
still find the eye and ear nearer to the brain than the 
hand." 'No assumption could be more false than this, 
that the eye and the ear are more important organs than 
the hand because they are located, physically, nearer the 
brain. The attribute of mobility with which the hand is 
endowed confers upon it not only the jjotency of the 



* Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of Schools of the City of 
Philadelphia, before the American Institute of Instruction at Sarato- 
ga, July 13, 1882. 



THE MIND AND THE HAND. 155 

closest possible proximity, but each of the countless po- 
sitions it may assume, together with its flexibility and 
adaptability, multiplies its powers in the order of a geo- 
metrical ratio. 

This disposition to undervalue the hand is an inheri- 
tance from the speculative philosophy of the Middle 
Ages, which was based on contempt of the body and all 
its members. The effect of this false doctrine has been 
vicious in the extreme. Contempt for the body has gen- 
erated a feeling of contempt for manual labor, and repug- 
nance to manual labor has multiplied dishonest practices 
in tlie course of the struggle to acquire wealth by any 
other means than manual labor, and so corrupted society. 

That man should feel contempt for the most efficient 
member of his own body is, indeed, incomprehensible, 
since contempt for the hand leads logically to contempt 
for its works, and its works comprise all the visible 
results of civilization. To enumerate the works of the 
hand would be to describe the world as it at present ex- 
ists in contradistinction to the world in a state of nature. 
Everywhere we behold with admiration and wonder the 
marvellous triumphs of the hand, from the iron bridge 
that spans the torrent of Niagara to the steel microm- 
eter that measures the millionth part of an inch. It 
matters not whether the hand is nearer or farther from 
the brain than the eye and the ear, it is able to afford 
powerful aid to them. 

Man would explore the planetary system ; he lifts his 
longing eyes to the starry vault, but in vain ; it is a 
sealed book ! The hand fashions the telescope, adjusts 
it, places it at a convenient angle, and the milky way is 
resolved into millions of stars, "scattered like glittering 
dust on the black ground of the general heavens," the 

7'"'" 



156 MANUAL TRAINING. 

lunar mountains are measured, and the spots on the sun 
revealed. Man would study the anatomy and habits of the 
myriads of insects in whicli the teeming earth abounds. 
Impossible ! The mechanism of the eye is not adapted 
to such a delicate oj)eration. But the hand presents the 
microscope, and a world of hitherto unknown minute ex- 
istences is revealed with a distinctness which permits the 
most exhaustive investigation. Thus, through the aid of 
the hand, the eye now contemplates witli philosopliic 
interest the ever-changing aspect of the spots on the sun 
at a distance of ninety miUion miles, and now imprisons 
the red ant, measuring only -j^ of an inch in length, and 
studies its physiology, counting its pulsations, classifying 
its nerves and muscles, and weighing its brain. Man 
would speak with his friend or business correspondent 
miles away. ISTeither the voice nor the ear is adapted to 
the task. But the hand fashions and presents the tele- 
phone, and the conversation proceeds even in a whisper. 
It will be said that the mind devises the telescope, the mi- 
croscope, and the telephone. True, but their construction 
would be impossible without the hand. And is it at all 
probable that the mind would have devised these admira- 
ble instruments if man had been made without hands V'' 

* "The hand is the most marvellous instrument in the Avorld; it is 
the necessary complement of the mind in dealing with matter in all 
its varied forms. It is the hand that ' rounded Peter's dome ;' it is 
the hand that carved those statues in marble and bronze, that painted 
those pictures in palace and church, which we travel into distant 
lands to admire; it is the hand that builds the ships which sail the 
sea, laden with the commerce of the world ; it is the hand that con- 
structs the machinery which moves the busy industries of this age of 
steam; it is the hand that enables the mind to realize in a thousand 
ways its highest imaginings, its profoundest reasonings, and its most 
practical inventions." — Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of 
Schools of the City of Philadelphia, before the American Institute of 
Instruclion at Saratoga, July 13, 1883. 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 157 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 

The Legend of Adam and the Stick with -which he subdued the Ani- 
mals. — The Stick is the Symbol of Power, and only the Hand can 
wield it. — The Hand imprisons Steam and Electricity, and keeps 
them at hard Labor.— The Destitution of England Two Hundred 
and Fifty Years ago ; a Pen Picture. — The Transformation wrought 
by the Hand: a Pen Picture. — It is due, not to Men who make 
Laws, but to Men who make Things. — The Scientist and the In- 
ventor are the World's Benefactors. — A Parallel between the Right 
Honorable William E. Gladstone and Sir Henry Bessemer. — Mr. 
Gladstone a Man of Ideas, Mr. Bessemer a Man of Deeds. — The 
Value of the latter's Inventions. — Mr. Gladstone represents the Old 
Education, Mr. Bessemer the New. 

It lias been remarked that man is the wisest of animals 
because he has hands. It is equally true that he is the 
most powerful of animals because he has hands. It is 
with the hand that man has subdued all the animals. 
Tliere is a legend to the effect that on the day when 
Adam revolted against his Maker, the animals, in their 
turn, revolted against him, and ceased to obey him. 
"Adam called on the Lord for help, and the Lord com- 
manded him to take a branch from the nearest tree and 
make of it a weapon, and strike with it the first animal 
that should refuse to obey him. Adam seized the branch, 
the leaves fell from it of their own accord, and he found 
himself furnished with a stick proportioucd to his 
height. "When the animals saw this weapon in the hands 
of the man they were seized witli an instinctive fear 
mingled with wonder, and they did not dare to attack 



158 MANUAL TKAINING. 

him. A lion alone, bolder than the rest, leaped upon 
him to devour him, but Adam, who stood upon his 
guard, swift as lightning whirled his stick and felled him 
to the earth with a single blow ! At this sight the terror 
of the other animals was so great that they approached 
him trembling, and in token of their submission licked 
the stick that he held in his hand.""'^ 

Throughout all the early ages the stick was both the 
symbol and the instrument of power ; and it is only the 
hand that can grasp and wield the stick. The early 
kings reigned by virtue of the strong arm and the supple 
hand. They claimed to be descended from Hercules, 
and their emblem of power was a knotty stick. 'Nor 
does empire depend less upon the hand now than it did 
in the morning of time. 

The hand no longer grasps the knotty stick; it no 
longer menaces mankind. It wields the mechanical pow- 
ers. It imprisons steam and electricity, and keeps them 
at hard labor. It makes ploughs, planters, harvesters, 
sewing-machines, locomotives, and steamships. It digs 
canals, opens mines, builds bridges, makes roads, erects 
mills and factories, constructs harbors and docks, reclaims 
waste lands, and covers tlie globe with tracks of steel 
over which the commerce of the world is borne. 

Two hundred and fifty years ago England was desti- 
tute of most of these things. It had then no good dirt 
roads even, no good bridges, no canals, no public works 
worth mentioning, and scarcely any manufactories of 
importance. The j^ost-bags were carried on horseback 



* "The Story of the Stick," p. 2. Translated and Adapted from 
the French of Antony Real [Pernand Michel]. New York: J. W. 
Bouton, 1875. 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 159 

once a week. The liigliways were besieged by robbers. 
One-fifth of the community were paupers. Mechaifics 
worked for from sixpence to a shilling a day. The chief 
food of the poor was rye, barley, or oats. The people 
were ignorant and brutal — " masters beat their servants, 
and husbands beat their wives. Teachers used the lash as 
the principal means of imparting knowledge. The mob 
rejoiced in fights of all kinds, and shouted with glee 
when an eye was torn out or a finger chopped oft" in 
these savage encounters. Executions were favorite pub- 
lic amusements. The prisons were full, and proved to be 
fruitful nurseries of crime." 

From little better than a wilderness, and almost a 
state of savagery, England has been transformed into a 
fruitful field, and its people raised in the scale of civ- 
ilization. Its public works are the admiration of the 
world ; its coffers are full of gold ; its strong boxes are 
piled high with evidences of the indebtedness of other 
nations ; its ships plough the billows of every sea, and 
bear the commerce of every land ; and its manufactories 
of vast extent are monuments of inventive genius, in- 
dustry, perseverance, and skill, more imposing far than 
the pyramids of Egj^pt or the temples of Greece and 
Rome. 

To whom do the people of England and of the world 
owe this national progress, this progress in the useful 
arts on a scale so colossal as, by comparison, to dwarf 
the achievements of all the earlier epochs of liistory? 
Not to statesmen or legislators. They neither dig ca- 
nals, open mines, build railways, lay ocean cables, nor 
erect factories. The pen in their hands may be mightier 
than the sword ; but it is no match for the plough and 
the reaper, the electric battery and imprisoned steam. 



160 MANUAL TRAINING. 

Legislators make laws but mechanics make things. On 
this subject, after an exhaustive investigation, Buckle 
says, " Seeing, therefore, that the efforts of government 
in favor of civilization are, when most successful, alto- 
gether negative, and seeing, too, that when these efforts 
are more than negative they become injurious, it clear- 
ly follows that all speculations must be erroneous which 
ascribe the progress of Europe to the wisdom of its 
rulers. This is an inference which rests not only on the 
arguments already adduced, but on facts which might be 
multiplied from every page of history. . . . We have 
seen that their laws in favor of industry have injured 
industr}^, that their laws in favor of religion have in- 
creased hypocrisy, and that their laws to secure truth 
have encouraged perjury. . . . But it is a mere matter 
of history that our legislators, even to the last moment, 
were so terrified by the idea of innovation that they re- 
fused every reform until the voice of the people rose 
high enough to awe them into submission, and forced 
them to grant what, without much pressure, they would 
by no means have conceded."* 

It is, then, clearly not to the men who make laws that 
we are indebted for progress in civilization, but to the 
men who make things. The scientist who discovers a 
new principle in physics is a public benefactor. The 
inventor Avho devises a new machine helps forward the 
cause of progress. Whitney's cotton-gin trebled the 
value of the cotton-fields of the South. The mechanic 
who constructs a machine that will make ten or a hun- 
dred things in the time before required to make one 



* "History of Civilization in England," Vol. I., pp. 204, 205, 3j61 
By Henry Thomas Buckle. New York -. D. Appleton & Co. 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 161 

tiling is in the front rank of tlie civilizers of tlie human 
race.* 

Inventors, not statesmen, rule tlie world through their 
machines, which augment man's powers and sharpen his 
senses. Steam has made all civilized countries prosper- 
ous and great by vastly increasing man's powers — by 
making liim hundred-handed. f 

In 1809 there was born to a distinguished baronet of 
Liverpool, England, a son. The boy was educated at 
Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford, graduating in 
1831. In 1832 the young man entered Parliament, In 
183i he took office under Sir Kobert Peel. The name 
of the young man who commenced life under such 
auspicious circumstances is "William Ewart Gladstone. 
For nearly half a century Mr. Gladstone has been a prom- 
inent figure in English politics and administration. Dur- 
ing this long period of time he has been in the eye of the 
world, so to speak. He has moulded the laws of an em- 
pire, repealed old statutes and made new statutes, largely 
influenced both the domestic and the foreign policy of a 
great nation, and exerted a considerable degree of con- 

* "Your -wealth, your amusement, your pride, would all be alike 
impossible, but for those whom you scorn or forget. . . . Tlie sailor 
wrestling with the sea's rage ; the quiet student poring over his book 
or his vial ; the common worker, without praise, and neai-ly without 
bread, fulfilling his task as your horses drag your carts, liopeless, 
and spurned of all : theso are the men by whom England lives." — 
" Sesame and Lilies," p. 68. By John Iluskin, LL.D. New York : 
John Wiley & Sons, 1884. 

f "The causes which most disturbed or accelerated the normal 
progress of society in antiquity were the appearance of great men; 
in modern times they have been the appearance of great inventions." 
— "History of European ]\Iorals," Vol. I., p. 136. By "William Ed- 
ward Ilartpole Lecky, M.X. New York : I). Applcton & Co. 



162 MANUAL TRAINING. 

trol over the international affairs of the continent of 
Europe. 

In 1813, four years after tlie birtli of Mr. Gladstone, 
at Charlton, in Hertfordshire, England, Henry Bessemer 
was born. His father, Anthony Bessemer, had fled to 
England in 1Y92, a refugee from France. Henry Besse- 
mer's early training consisted of the rudiments of an 
ordinary education received in the parish school of the 
neighboring town of Hitchin. His father was a skilled 
mechanic and inventor, and Henry inherited the invent- 
ive faculty. He studied and practised the art of wood- 
turnery, producing, before arriving at the age of man- 
hood, the most difhcult patterns known to the art. 

At the age of eighteen, in the year 1831 — the year in 
which Mr. Gladstone completed his education — young 
Bessemer appeared in London, an obscure, unknown 
stranger. He, however, secured employment as a mod- 
eller and designer. His attention was soon directed to 
the imperfections of government stamps, in which there 
had been no improvement since the time of Queen Anne. 
He was informed by Sir Charles Persley, of the Stamp- 
office, that the frauds in stamps probably aggregated 
one hundred thousand pounds per annum. In the even- 
ings of a few months he invented and made an im- 
proved stamp which obviated the objections to the one 
then in use. The invention was at once adopted by the 
Stamp-office, and in lieu of a stipulated sum in payment 
therefor, young Bessemer was asked " whether he would 
be satisfied with the position of superintendent of stamps, 
with five hundred or six hundred pounds per annum?" 
The suggested appointment he agreed to accept. Mean- 
time, before the contemplated change occurred in the 
Stamp-office, the young inventor devised a further im- 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 163 

proveraent in the new stamp, wliicli not only made it much 
more perfect, but rendered it unnecessary for the govern- 
ment to employ a superintendent of stamps. In perfect 
good faith young Bessemer exhibited to the chief of the 
Stamp-office his new stamp, which was so palpably an im- 
provement on the other that it was at once preferred and 
promptly adopted. What is more, the government not 
only declined, to appoint the inventor to a place, but de- 
clined to give him a penny for his invention. Tliis was in 
1834, the year in which Mr. Gladstone entered upon his 
long career as a representative of the British Crown. As 
young Mr. Gladstone was entering the Treasury, its "jun- 
ior lord," young Mr. Bessemer was retiring from it an 
unsuccessful suitor for the just reward of genius and toil. 
He says, " Thus sad. and dis]3iritedj and with a burning 
sense of injustice overpowering all other feelings, I went 
my way from the Stamp-office, too proud to ask as a fa- 
vor that which was indubitably my right."- 

From this point, both of time and event, there is a 
very wide divergence in the lives of these great men. 
The one is a man of ideas, the other a man of deeds. 
Mr. Gladstone thinks, talks, makes treaties and laws. He 
is constantly in the public eye, and his name ever on the 
public tongue. He is regarded as a great financier ; he 
is certainly a great orator. He sways the multitude with 
his eloquence. He takes distinguished part in the wordy 
contests which occur every now and then in Parliament. 
These debates are much talked of. At the conclusion 
of one of them there is a vote of want of confidence, 
and Mr. Gladstone goes out of office and Mr. Dis- 



* "The Creators of the Age of Steel," p. 20. By W. T. Jeans. 
New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884. 



164 MANUAL TRAINING. 

raeli comes in. At the conclusion of another of them 
there is a vote of want of confidence, and Mr. Disraeli 
goes out of office and Mr. Gladstone comes in. But 
whether Mr. Gladstone goes out and Mr, Disraeli comes 
in, or Mr. Disraeli goes out and Mr. Gladstone comes in, 
makes very little difference with the trade and commerce 
of the kingdom. The railway traffic continues in the 
one event or the other ; the steamers continue to cross 
and recross the ocean ; the " post " comes and goes ; the 
electric current continues to act as messenger-boy; the 
telephone brings us face to face with our business corre- 
spondent or friend. There is, indeed, no reason why a vote 
of want of confidence in Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Disraeli 
should imply a want of confidence in steam or electricity, 
because neither Mr. Gladstone nor Mr. Disraeli ever have 
anything to do with the application of these great forces 
to the uses of man. They are entirely absorbed, the 
one in promoting the advancement of Liberalism, and 
the other in promoting the advancement of Toryism. 
And it is a curious fact, as showing the mutability of 
political opinion, that Mr. Disraeli entei'ed public life as 
a Liberal, and subsequently became a great Tory leader ; 
and Mr. Gladstone entered public life as a Tory, and sub- 
sequently became a great Liberal leader. 

For twenty -two years after he had retired empty- 
handed from, the government Stamp-office Mr. Bessemer 
continued his career as an inventor and manufacturer, 
without, however, attracting any great share of public 
attention. But in 1856 he announced that he had made 
a discovery of vast importance in the process of steel 
making.* For a hundred years previously the LTuntsman 

* " The first patent of Sir H. Bessemer in which air is mentioned 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 165 

process had held the field. It yielded excellent steel but 
was very expensive. Mr. Bessemer announced that he 
could produce splendid cast -steel at about the cost of 
making iron. The announcement was received with 
much incredulity ; but the " Bessemer converter " was 
exhibited, the new process shown, and the result seemed 
to confirm the verity of tlie claim of the inventor. Prac- 
tical difiiculties, however, postponed its complete success 
till 1860, when the new process supplanted all others. 

Mr. Bessemer now stood at the head of the inventors 
of the world, and Mr. Gladstone, as Chancellor of the 
Exchequer under Lord Palmerston, had come to be re- 
garded as one of the most skilful governmental financiers 
in Europe, which meant that he was an adept in devising 
schemes of taxation calculated to yield the most revenue 
with the least popular discontent. When it is considered 
that it is necessary for the English Minister of Finance 
to draw from the British people more than a million dol- 
lars every morning of the year, including Sundays, before 
either the English lord or the English peasant can indulge 
in a free breakfast, so to speak, the extreme delicacy of 
the duties devolving upon him will be understood and 
appreciated. If he proposes the repeal of the soap tax 
in order to extinguish the slave-trade, he must impose 
an additional penny in the pound on malt liquors in 
order to put an end to the vice of drunkenness. He is 
constantly between Scylla and Charybdis — in keeping 

as the oxidizing agent is dated October 17, 1855, and other three 
months were spent in experimenting before the idea of introducing 
the air from the bottom of a large converter struck him. The patent 
embodying the latter idea is dated February 11, 1856." — " The Cre- 
ators of the Age of Steel," note to p. 38. By W. T. Jeans. New 
York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884. 



166 MANUAL TRAINING. 

off the one he is in danger of being swallowed up in the 
other. And if he can, at the end of the fiscal year, find 
a million dollars to apply to the liquidation of the public 
debt, he is extremely fortunate. From 1836, about the 
time Mr. Gladstone began his public career, down to ten 
years ago, the several chancellors of the English Excheq- 
uer, including Mr. Gladstone, contrived to save, in the 
aggregate, about thirteen million dollars for this purpose. 

Let us recur a moment to the subject of the invention 
of Mr. Bessemer. It went into operation in 1860. The 
temptation to reproduce Mr. Bessemer's own description 
of his process, which revolutionized the manufacture of 
steel, is irresistible. It is as follows : 

" The converting vessel is mounted on an axis at or 
near its centre of gravity. It is constructed of boiler- 
plates, and is lined either with fire-brick, road-drift, or 
gannister, which resists the heat better than any other 
material yet tried, and has also the advantage of cheap- 
ness. The vessel, having been heated, is brought into the 
requisite position to receive its charge of melted metal, 
without either of the tuyeres (or air-holes) being below 
the surface. ISTo action can therefore take place until 
the vessel is turned up (so that the blast can enter 
through the tuyeres). The process is thus in an instant 
brought into full activity, and small though powerful 
jets of air spring upward through the fluid mass. The 
air, expanding in volume, divides itself into globules, or 
bursts violently upward, carrying with it some hundred- 
weight of fluid metal, which again falls into the boiling 
mass below. Every part of the apparatus trembles un- 
der the violent agitation thus produced ; a roaring flame 
rushes from the mouth of the vessel, and as the process 
advances it changes its violet color to orange, and finally 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 167 

to a voluminous pure white flame. The sparks, which 
at first were large, like those of ordinary founderj iron, 
change into small hissing points, and these gradually 
give way to soft floating specks of bluish light as the 
state of malleable iron is approached. There is no 
eruption of cinder as in the early experiments, although 
it is formed during the process ; the imj)roved shape of 
the converter causes it to be retained, and it not only 
acts beneficially on the metal, but it helps to confine the 
heat, which during the process has rapidly risen from 
the comparatively low temperature of melted pig-iron to 
one vastly greater than the highest known welding heats, 
by which malleable iron only becomes sufficiently soft 
to be shaped by the blows of the hammer ; but here it 
becomes perfectly fluid, and even rises so much above 
the melting point as to admit of its being poured from 
the converter into a founder's ladle, and from thence 
to be transferred to several successive moulds." * 

"What is the value of this process? "What is the ex- 
tent of the service rendered by Mr. Bessemer to man? 
It is estimated that in the twenty-one years first elapsing 
after the successful working of the Bessemer process, the 
production of steel by it, notwithstanding its necessarily 
slow progress, amounted to twenty-five million tons. At 
$200 a ton, the alleged saving in cost as compared with 
the old process, this represents an aggregate saving of 
$5,000,000,000. In 1882 the world's production was 
four million tons, which at the rate named yields a 
saving of the enormous aggregate of $800,000,000 in a 
single year. These sums seem almost fabulous, especial- 
ly so since they result from simply blowing air through 

* " The Creators of the Age of Steel," p. 71. By W. T. Jeans. 
New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884. 



168 MANUAL TKAINING. 

crude melted iron for a quarter of an hour! But tlie 
radical character of the change wrought in the metal by 
the air-blowing process is shown by the fact that a steel 
rail is worth as much as twenty iron rails.^" 

All the governments of Europe honored Mr. Bessemer 
for his great invention, some by medals and orders of 
merit, and others by appropriating without compensa- 
tion his process of steel-making. Of these latter Prussia 
stood in the front rank. England alone stood aloof. 
" A prophet is not without honor save in his own coun- 
try and among his own kin." From 1860 to 1872 Eng- 
land continued to load Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli 
with honors, but not until the latter year did the govern- 
ment recognize Mr. Bessemer, when the Prince of Wales 
presented him with the Albert gold medal, and in 1879 
he was knighted by the Queen. 

A comparison between the lives and services to man 
of two of the most distinguished statesmen of England, 
with the life and services, to man, of Sir Henry Bessemer, 
cannot fail to be of great value to every young man who 
possesses the power of just discrimination. But can just 
discrimination be expected of any young man entering 

* "At the Birmingham meeting of the British Association in 1865, 
Sir Henry Bessemer explained that at Challi Farm steel rails were 
laid down on one side of the line and iron rails on the other, so that 
every engine and carriage there had to pass over both steel and iron 
rails at the same time. When the first face was worn off an iron rail 
it was turned the other way upward, and when the second face was 
woru out it was replaced by a new iron rail. When Sir Henry ex- 
hibited one of these steel rails at Birmingham only one face of it was 
nearly worn out, while on the opposite side of the line eleven iron 
rails had in the same time been worn out on both faces. It thus ap- 
peared that one steel rail was capable of doing the Avork of twenty- 
three iron ones."— "The Creators of the Age of Steel," p. 93. By 
W. T. Jeans. New York: Charles Scribner's Sous, 1881 



THE POWER OF THE TRAINED HAND. 169 

upon the stage of active life when sucli discrimination 
is not possessed bj the public at large ? For example : 
The question being propounded, What is the value of tlie 
combined services to man of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. 
Disraeli, as compared with those of Sir Henry Besse- 
mer? ninety-nine out of a hundred men of sound judg- 
ment would doubtless say, " The value of the services of 
the two statesmen is quite unimportant, while the value 
of the services of Mr. Bessemer is enormous, incalcula- 
ble." But how many of these ninety-nine men of sound 
judgment could resist the fascination of the applause 
accorded to the statesmen ? How many of them would 
have the moral courage to educate their sons for the 
career of Mr. Bessemer instead of for the career of Mr. 
Disraeli or of Mr. Gladstone? " l^ot many in the present 
state of public sentiment. It will be a great day for 
man, the day that ushers in the dawn of more sober 
views of life, the day that inaugurates the era of things 
in the place of words. 

Mr. Gladstone stands for politics and statesmanship at 
their best, and his career is the product of the old system 
of education at its best. Mr. Bessemer stands for science 
and art united, and his career is the product of the new 
education. 

* "If there were two valleys in California or Australia with two 
different kinds of gravel in the bottom of them, and in the one stream- 
bed you could dig up, occasionally and by good-fortune, nuggets of 
gold, and in the other stream-bed, certainly and without hazard, you 
Qould dig up little caskets containing talismans which gave length of 
days and peace, and alabaster vases of precious balms which were 
better than the Arabian dervish's ointment, and made not only the 
eyes to see, but the mind to know whatever it would — I wonder 
in which of the stream-beds there would be most diggers ?" — "Time 
and Tide," p. 100. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John 
Wiley & Sons, 1883. 



170 MANUAL TRAINING. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE INVENTORS, CIVIL ENGINEERS, AND MECHANICS 
OF ENGLAND, AND ENGLISH PROGRESS. 

A Trade is better tlian a Profession. — The Railway, Telegraph, and 
Steamship are more Potent than the Lawyer, Doctor, and Priest. — 
Book-makers writing the Lives of the Inventors of last Century. — 
The Workshop to be the Scene of the Greatest Triumphs of Man. 
— The Civil Engineers of England the Heroes of English Progress. 
— The Life of James Brindley, the Canal-maker; his Struggles and 
Poverty. — The Roll of Honor.— Mr. Gladstone's Significant Admis- 
sion that English Triumphs in Science and Art were won without 
Government Aid. — Disregarding the Common-sense of the Savage, 
Legislators have chosen to learn of Plato, who declared that "The 
Useful Arts are Degrading." — How Improvements in the Arts have 
been met by Ignorant Opposition. — The Power wielded by the 
Mechanic. 

The young man with a meclianical trade is better 
equipped for the battle of life than the young man with 
a learned profession. The prizes may not be so dazzling, 
but they are more numerous, and they are within reach. 
The skilled mechanic, with industry and prudence, is sure 
of a cottage, and the cottage may grow into a mansion, 
while the man of letters struggles so often in vain to 
mount the steps of a palace. The railroad, the telegraph, 
and the steamship exert a more potent influence upon 
the destinies of mankind than the lawyer, the doctor, and 
the priest. The giants, steam and electricity, which bear 
the great burdens of commerce, have to be harnessed to 
enable them to do their work ; and to make this harness, 
the furnace, the forge, and the shop are brought into 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 171 

requisition. The railroad alone taxes to the utmost nearly 
every department of the useful arts. To the construc- 
tion of the passenger - coach, for instance, more than a 
hundred trades contribute the varied cunning and skill 
of their workmanship. 

This is the age of steel, and he who knows how to 
mould the king of metals into puissant forms has his 
hand nearest the rod of empire. Who would not rather 
be able to construct a Corliss engine than learn the trick 
of drawing a bill in chancery ? 

There was a time, not long ago, when inventors and 
discoverers were little recognized and poorly compen- 
sated for their splendid achievements. But that time is 
past. The book-makers of to-day are gro23ing about the 
old shops where the inventors of last century woi'ked, 
and the cottages where they lived, in order to tell the 
simple story of their lives, and write their names in the 
temple of fame. Huntsman, who emerged from long 
seclusion over the furnace and crucible, and presented 
to his fellow -workmen a piece of steel which rivalled 
that of old Damascus, and drove from the British mar- 
kets all other steels — how resplendent his name is now ! 
How every incident in the life of Watt is sought for — • 
his struggles, his disappointments, and his final success ! 
And so of Mushet, Neilson, Bramah, Maudslay, Clement 
Murray, Xasmyth, Stephenson, and Fulton. When Watt 
had devised his engine he found no workmen expert 
enough to make it. Then Maudslay, Clement, and Mur- 
ray invented automatic iron hands and fingers, and en- 
dowed them with almost human intelligence, and far more 
than human precision, and Watt's difliculty was removed. 

The greasy mechanics did more to hasten the world's 
progress in a century — 1740 to IS-iO — tlian had been ac- 

S 



173 MANUAL TRAINING. 

complisbed up to that time by all the statesmen of all 
the dead ages. But those heroes of the workshop had 
none of the opportunities afforded bj the manual train- 
ing school of the present age. They toiled many hours 
each day for a shilling or two, and lived in stuffy hovels 
and puzzled over the a h c oi mechanics by the light of 
a tallow-candle. Some of them gained fortunes, while 
others were robbed of the fruits of genius, and slept in 
"unknown graves, but all their names are treasured and 
honored now. The world moves, and in this age it 
moves always towards a higher a23preciation of the value 
of the useful arts. This country is destined to become 
a vast workshop, and in this workshop the best energies, 
the strongest vital forces of the American people are 
eventually to be exerted. How necessary, then, to edu- 
cate the hands as well as the brain of the youth of the 
country. 

Mr. Smiles, in his " Lives of the Engineers," has shown 
us the true s23riDgs of English greatness. In telling the 
story of the struggles and triumphs of the canal-makers, 
the bridge-builders, the coal-miners, the millwrights, the 
road-makers, the harbor and dock makers, the ship-build- 
ers, the iron and steel makers, and the railway-builders — 
in telling tliis story of persistence, of nerve, and " pluck,'' 
he has sketched the career of the real heroes of Eno^lish 
progress. A brief sketch of the life of James Brindley 
will serve to show how these noble men wrought, how 
they suffered, and how they conquered. 

James Brindley was born in 1716. His parents were 
poor. His father was a ne'er-do-well. His mother taught 
him to be honest and industrious. James worked as a 
common laborer till he was seventeen years of age. In 
1733 he became a millwright's apprentice — bound for 



INVENTOKS A^'D MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 173 

seven years. He was a dull boy, learning slowly, but 
before the end of liis "bound" term he became the best 
workman in tlie neigbborliood. Pie helped the now cel- 
ebrated Wedgwoods out of a difficulty by inventing and 
constructing iiint- mills for their works. He invented 
and constructed pumps for clearing the Clifton coal- 
mines of water — an entirely new device that opened coal 
chambers which had long been completely drowned out. 
His compensation for this class of work — the work of 
genius — was two shillings a day I 

In 1755 he built a silk-mill, in which he made several 
imj^ortant improvements in machinsry, etc. But this 
man, who possessed inventive genius of a high order and 
large executive ability, could neither write legibly nor 
spell correctly, and his charge for almost inestimable serv- 
ices was still, in 1757, only two to four shillings a day. 
His straggles to improve the steam-engine form a curious 
chapter in the story of his life. It was to him that the 
Duke of Brido-ewater owed his success in canal-makino;. 

The duke was born in 1736. He was a weak and sick- 
ly child, his mental capacity being apparently defective 
to a degree sufficient to debar him from his inheritance 
of the family title and estates. An affair of the heart 
which resulted unfavorably rendered him morose, and 
changed his whole course of life. He abruptly quitted 
the race-track, where he had condescended even to play 
the role of "jockey," and turned his attention to the im- 
provement of his estates. They contained coal depos- 
its, which he undertook to develop through cheapening 
transportation, and Brindley became his engineer. His 
first canal, consisting largely of aqueducts, was called 
"Brindley's castle in the air," and his "river hung in 
the air." It was this "river hunu: in the air" — the first 



174 MANUAL TRAINING. 

English canal — that made the Manchester of to-day pos- 
sible. Another canal enterprise of the duke cost more 
than a million dollars — that connecting Liverpool with 
Manchester. This latter canal yielded £80,000 per an- 
num income, and it was constructed by Brindley at a 
salary of 3^. Qd. a day ! 

Brindley was obstinate, and often quarrelled with his 
employer about the methods of construction of great 
works ; and what is more, the duke always submitted. 
He humbly submitted to every demand made by his 
engineer except a demand for compensation. Brindley's 
"wage" rate during the many years occupied in the 
duke's great canal enterj)rises was 3^. Qd. per day. This, 
at all events, is the price named by Smiles in his life 
of Brindley. In a note to the work it is, however, stated 
that his stipulated pay was a guinea a day. It is agreed 
on all hands, nevertheless, that whatever the rate agreed 
upon was, Brindley was not paid, and that his heirs were 
begging unsuccessfully for his just dues long after his 
death. In a word, Brindley's honor as an engineer being 
at stake, and it being dearer to him than any money 
consideration, he worked for nothing rather than allow 
the enterprise to fail. And the duke was parsimonious 
enough to take the engineer's services for nothing, and 
his heirs were mean enough to refuse payment for such 
services when demanded by his widow. 

In a literary point of view Brindley was ignorant, but 
in no other respect. This was said of him by one of his 
contemporaries : 

"Mr. Brindley is one of those great geniuses whom 
ISTature sometimes rears by her own force, and brings to 
maturity without the necessity of cultivation. His whole 
plan is admirable, and so well calculated that he is never 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND, 175 

at a loss ; for if any difficulty arises he removes it -with a 
facility which appears so much like inspiration that you 
would think Minerva was at his fingers' ends."'^" 

The life of Brindley is typical of a score of biogra- 
phies presented in the "Lives of the Engineers," among 
which the following are especially worthy of mention: 
William Edwards, John Metcalf, John Perry, Sir Hugh 
Myddelton, Cornelius Yermuyden, Andrew Yarranton,f 
Andrew Meikle, John Rennie, John Smeaton, Thomas 
Telford, William Murdoch, Dr. D. Papin, Thomas Savery, 
Dud Dudley, Matthew Boulton, and William Symington. 
These, and their natural coadjutors, the discoverers of new 
forces in nature and the inventors of new thing-s in art, the 
iron-workers and tool-makers — these are the great names 
in English history. They are the names without which 
there would have been no English history w^orth writing. 
Mr. Gladstone once said of them, naming Brindley, Met- 
calf, Smeaton, Rennie, and Telford, " These men who 
liave now become famous among us had no mechanics' 
institutes, no libraries, no classes, no examinations to 
cheer them on their way. In the greatest poverty, diffi- 
culties, and discouragements their energies were found 
sufficient for their w^ork, and they have written their 
names in a distinguished page of the history of their 
country." 



* "Lives of the Engineers.'' By Samuel Smiles. London: John 
Murray, 1863. Vol. I., "Life of James Brindley." 

f "He was the founder of English political economy, the first man 
in England who saw and said that peace is better than war, that trade 
is better than plunder, that honest industry is better than martial 
greatness, and that the best occupation of a government is to secure 
prosperity at home, and let other nations alone." — "Elements of Po 
litical Science." By Patrick Edward Dove. Edinburgh: 1854. 



176 MANUAL TRAINING. 

The admission of Mr. Gladstone that the great achieve- 
ments of these heroes of invention and discovery were 
won without any aid whatever, either from the govern- 
ment or the people of England, is a pregnant fact. It is 
the key-note of this work, the reason why it is written 
and published. 

The neglect of the useful arts by all the governments 
of the world, from the dawn of civilization down to the 
present time, is an impeachment of the common-sense of 
mankind as shown in the conduct of public affairs. The 
civilized man might have learned wisdom from the sav- 
age, who is taught to fight, to hunt, and to fish, the brain, 
the hand, and the eye being trained simultaneously. But 
he chose to learn of Plato, who in the "Republic" says to 
Glaucon, " All the useful arts, I believe, we thought de- 
grading." And further in the same work: "We shall 
tell our people, in mythical language, you are doubtless 
all brethren as many as inhabit the city, but the God 
who created you, mixed gold in the composition of such 
of you as are qualified to rule, which gives them the 
highest value, while in the auxiliaries he made silver an 
ingredient, assigning iron and copper to the cultivators of 
the soil and the other workmen. Therefore, inasmuch as 
you are all related to one another, although your children 
will generally resemble their parents, yet sometimes a 
golden parent will produce a silver child, and a silver 
parent a golden child, and so on, each producing any. 
The rulers, therefore, have received this in charge first 
and above all from the gods, to observe nothing more 
closely, in their character of vigilant guardians, than the 
children that are born, to see which of these metals en- 
ters into the composition of their souls ; and if a child 
be born in their class \\\tl\ an alloy of copper or iron, 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 177 

they are to have no manner of pity upon it, but giving 
it the vahie that belongs to its nature, they are to thrust 
it away into the class of artisans or agriculturists. And 
if, again, among these a child be born with an admixture 
of gold or silver, when they have assayed it they are to 
raise it either to the class of guardians or to that of aux- 
iliaries, because there is an oracle which declares that 
the city shall then perish when it is guarded by iron or 
copper,"'-^ 

So ingrained in the public mind has this contempt for 
the artisan and laborer become in the course of ages, that 
notwithstanding the fact of the admitted kingship of 
iron among metals, and notwithstanding the fact that 
without iron the world would almost sink into a state of 
barbarism, still the opposition to the introduction of tool 
practice into the public schools is violent, and most vio- 
lent among those classes who would be most benefited 
by it. During the pendency of a bill in the Massachu- 
setts Assembly in 1883, providing for the admission of 
manual training to the public-school curriculum, an op- 
ponent of the measure said : " The introduction of the 
use of tools is only another attempt to dej)rive the poor- 
er classes of a good education. It is simply an attempt 
to overload the course of studies in the schools so that 
children shall not learn anything; so that the poor may 
be made poorer, while tlie children of the rich having a 
good time in the public schools may have their thought 
and health preserved for liigher or special education." 

This is a repetition of the old answer of the Inquisition 
to Galileo upon the announcement and defence of his 



* "The Republic of Plato," p. 114. London: Macmillau & Co., 

1881. 



178 MANUAL TRAINING. 

great discovery. He was summoned to Eome, and " ac- 
cused of having taught that the earth moves, that the 
sun is stationary, and of having attempted to reconcile 
these doctrines with the Scriptures." Bruno had been 
driven to and fro over the face of the civilized world, 
and finally burned in the year 1600 for teaching the sys- 
tem of Copernicus. Having the fear of Bruno's fate be- 
fore his eyes, Galileo recanted, and promised neither to 
publish nor defend his great discoveries. But his love 
of science overcame his fear of oppression, and in 1632 
he published his " System of the "World." Again he 
was summoned before the Inquisition, which was des- 
tined forever after to torment and persecute him. He 
was driven to his knees before the cardinals, consigned 
to prison, and tortured to blindness. After his death in 
prison at the age of seventy-seven years, his right to make 
a will was disputed, his body was denied burial in con- 
secrated ground, and his friends were prohibited the priv- 
ilege of raising a monument to his memory in the Church 
of Santa Croce in Florence. 

Eighteen hundred years ago a Roman emjDeror refused 
to sanction the use of improved machinery in the j)i'Ose- 
cution of a great public work, on the ground that it 
would deprive the poor of employment. 

In 1663 a Dutchman erected a saw-mill in England, 
but the hostility of the workmen compelled its abandon- 
ment. More than a hundred years elapsed before the 
second saw-mill was put in operation in England, and 
that was destroyed by hand-sawyers. 

The Flemish weavers who introduced improved weav- 
ing machinery into England in the seventeenth century 
were met by protests. One of these protests, addressed 
to Parliament, represented that the Flemish weavers had 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 179 

"made so bould as to devise engines for working of tape, 
lace, ribbin, and sueli like, wlierein one man dotli more 
among them than seven Englishe men can doe, so as 
their cheap sale of commodities beggereth all our Eng- 
lishe artificers of that trade and enricheth them." 

A little more than a hundred years ago, in England, 
when the Sankey Canal, six miles long, was authorized, 
it was upon the express condition that the boats plying 
upon it should be drawn by men only. 

Illustrations of the vis inerticB of ignorance might be 
multiplied indefinitely. Ignorance reverences the past. 
Ignorance never doubts. Ignorance is content ; perfect- 
ly satisfied with its own knowledge, if the paradox may 
be allowed, it never seeks to increase it. But it is sus- 
picious. In every effort to enlighten it discovers a con- 
spiracy to undermine. Incapable of the intellectual ef- 
fort of inquiry, it stagnates, and regards as a deadly enemy 
those who seek to disturb the serenity of its muddy pool. 

When labor was only another name for a state of slav- 
ery, to teach men to labor skilfully was merely to raise 
them to a little higher grade of servitude. Hence it is 
only at a very recent period that it has occurred to man- 
kind to teach skilled labor in the schools. All educa- 
tional systems, our own among the rest, seem to have 
been intended to make lawj^ers, doctors, priests, states- 
men, litterateurs, poets. Bat this is the age of steel, the 
age of machines and machinery. Tremendous forces in 
nature have been discovered and utilized, and these dis- 
coveries and their utilization have so multiplied vast en- 
terprises that the importance of the more ornamental 
branches of learning is dwarfed in their presence. This 
is the j^ractical age, and an educational system which is 
not practical is nothing. AVe shall still have our Tenny- 



180 MANUAL TRAINING. 

sons, and our Longfellows, and our doctors of abstract 
philosophy ; but there is little time to sentimentalize with 
the poets or speculate with the philosophers. There is 
work to do. The mine is to be explored and its treasures 
brought to the surface; more and more powerful ma- 
chines are to be constructed to bear the burdens of com- 
merce ; new elements of force are to be discovered and 
applied to the constantly increasing wants of mankind.* 

On the subject of the demand for a more comprehen- 
sive educational system, Col. Augustus Jacobson says, 
with great force, "Youth is the expensive period of 
man's existence. Youth produces nothing and eats all 
the time. If the youth is not trained there can hardly 
be a profit to mankind on his existence. As mankind is 
liable for, and bound to pay, his expenses, he should be 
80 trained that he may repay them. He can only become 
a profitable investment by training. If he is left un- 
skilled, the money spent on him is wasted. There is 
no profit on a whole generation of Spaniards or Turks. 
Mankind should be wise enough to reap the profit there 
always is in finishing raw material, by making human 
raw material into a highly finished product." 

There are millions of " bright, capable " little human 
beings in the schools of the United States, receiving, 

* " To know the ' use ' either of land or tools you must know what 
useful things can be grown from the one and made with the other. 
And therefore to know what is useful, and what useless, and be skil- 
ful to provide the one, and wise to scorn the other, is the first need 
for all industrious men. Wherefore, I propose that schools should 
be established wherein the use of land and tools shall be taught con- 
clusively — in other words, the sciences of agriculture (with associated 
river and sea culture), and the noble arts and exercises of humanity. — ■ 
"ForsClavigera,"p. 302. Part. III. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New 
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1881. 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OP ENGLAND. 181 

doubtless, excellent intellectual or mental training. But 
tliey are not being trained for the actual duties of life as 
the savage child is taught to fight, to fish, and to hunt. 
They are not taught to labor with their hands, either 
skilfully or unskilfully. They are not given instruction 
in any department of the useful arts, notwithstanding 
the fact that in the case of a vast majority of them the 
alternative of earning their bread by the labor of their 
unskilled hands, or resorting to their untrained wits for 
a sup23ort, will be presented immediately on their en- 
trance upon the stage of active life. The apprentice 
system gave skilled mechanics to England, and her splen- 
did manufacturing prosperity is the result. The trained 
English apprentice became an inventor, and his inven- 
tions and art discoveries studded the island with workshops 
filled with automatic product-multiplying machinery. 

The savage of Australia in Captain Cook's time could 
kill a pigeon with a sj^ear at thirty yards, but he couldn't 
count the fingers on his right hand. The Southern Es- 
quimau turns a somersault in the water in his boat with 
ease. But his more ISTorthern brother has no canoe, and 
is ignorant of the existence of a boat ; he has no use for 
a boat, because the sea in the latitude of his home is 
frozen the entire year. The savage is taught what he 
needs to know in his condition, and is taught nothing 
else ; hence his skill in the few avocations he pursues. 

Tlie civilized boy in school is taught many theories, 
but is not required to put any of them in practice ; hence 
he enters upon the serious duties of life unprepared to 
discharge any of them.* It may be said that he is in 

* Discussion of the subject of technical education at a meeting of 
the Society of Arts, London, England, 1885. 

Dr. Gladstone, F. U.S. : "It should be their aim in [clonipntary 



182 MANUAL TRAINING. 

real danger of the penitentiary until lie learns a profes- 
sion or a trade. "Of four hundred and eighty -seven 
convicts consigned to the State Prison for the Eastern Dis- 
trict of Pennsylvania in 1879, five-sixths had attended pub- 
lic schools, and the same number were without trades." 
It is noticeable also that during the same period "not 
five were received who were what are called mechanics." 
In the penitentiary of the State of Illinois four out of 
five of the convicts have no handicraft. The fact that 
the skilled workman is far more likely than the common 
laborer to keep out of the penitentiary is a powerful 
argument in favor of joining manual training to the 
mental exercises of our common schools. 

The general adoption of a comprehensive system of 
mechanical education in the public schools would quickly 
dispel the unworthy prejudice against labor which taints 
the minds of the youth of the country. The sj)lendid 
career which this age opens to the educated mechanic 
would become clear to the vision of every boy in the 
land, and he would see, in the tools he was taught to 

scliools] to give such a notion of the vahie of materials and the use 
of tools as could afterwards be turned to use in any required direc- 
tion. There were two great difficulties in the way of doing this. 
The first and greatest was the inveterate notion that education con- 
sisted of book-learning. . . . Another difficulty was the ignorance of 
teachers in this respect. If an endeavor were made to introduce 
some knowledge of science into schools, they generally found that 
the teachers had some kind of theoretical knowledge, but it had been 
obtained mainly from books; and what was chiefly wanted was that 
things should be taught as well as words and before words." 

Prof. Guthrie, F.R.S. : "This method of bringing the hand and 
the mind to work together really lay at the basis of all true tech- 
nical instruction; where the mind alone was employed the knowl- 
edge acquired passed away, but when the mind and the hand had 
been educated together the knowledge was never forgotten." 



INVENTORS AND MECHANICS OF ENGLAND. 183 

handle, the key not only to fair success, but to wealth 
and fame. Professor Thurston, President of the Ameri- 
can Society of Mechanical Engineers, thus depicts the 
tremendous power wielded by the mechanic : 

" The class of men from whose ranks the membership 
of this society is principally drawn direct the labors of 
tiearly three millions of j)i'osperous people in three hun- 
dred thousand mills, with $2,500,000,000 capital ; they 
direct the payment of more than $1,000,000,000 in annual 
Tages ; the consumption of $3,000,000,000 worth of raw 
material, and the output of $5,000,000,000 worth of man- 
ufactured products. Fifty thousand steam-engines, and 
more than as many water-wheels, at their command turn 
the machinery of these hundreds of thousands of work- 
shops that everywhere dot our land, giving the strength 
of three million horses night or day."* 

* Inaugural address, as President of the American Society of En- 
gineers, New Tork, November 4, 1880. 



184 MANUAL TEAINING. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS. 

A few Million People now wield twice as much Industrial Power as 
all the People on the Globe exerted a Hundred Years ago. — A 
Revolution wrought, not by the Schools and Colleges, but by the 
Mechanic. — The Union between Science and Art prevented by the 
Speculative Philosophy of the Middle Ages. — Statesmen, Lawyers, 
Litterateurs, Poets, and Artists more highly esteemed than Civil 
Engineers, Mechanics, and Artisans. — The Refugee Artisan a Pow- 
er in England, the Refugee Politician worthless. — Prejudice against 
the Artisan Class shown by Mr. Galton in his Work on "Hereditary 
Genius." — The Influence of Slavery: it has lasted Thousands of 
Years, and still Survives. 

What the civil engineers and mechanics of England 
have done for that country the same classes here have 
done for America. It is by these classes that all civilized 
countries have been made prosperous and great. And 
the agent through which the power of man has been 
augmented a thousand-fold is steam. "In the manufact- 
ures of Great Britain alone, the power which steam ex- 
erts is estimated to be equal to the manual labor of four 
hundred millions of men, or more than double the num- 
ber of males supposed to inhabit the globe."'^ This is the 
most significant fact of all time, namely, that a few mill- 
ions of jieople in a small island now wield twice as much 
industrial power as all the people on the globe exerted 
one hundred years ago. And it is a fact of the utmost 

* "Brief Biographies: James Watt," p. 1. Bj"- Samuel Smiles. 
Cliicago : Belford, Clark & Co., 1883. 



POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS. 185 

significance that the public educational institutions of 
England contributed scarcely anything to this industrial 
revolution, whose influence now comprehends all civilized 
countries. The men by whom it was wrought came not 
from the classic shades of the universities, but from the 
foundery, the forge, and the machine-shop. There has 
been very little change in educational methods since the 
time when Bacon said, " They learn nothing at the univer- 
sities but to believe." lie proposed that a college be es- 
tablished and devoted to the discovery of new truth. ISTo 
such college has, however, been established, but many new 
truths have been discovered. Suppose all the universities 
of England, of the United States, and of all other highly 
civilized countries had, from the time of Bacon, been 
conformed to his ideas, and devoted to the discovery of 
new truths ? Such a course would have united science 
and art, and insured vastly greater progress, no doubt, 
than that which has actually taken place. The union of 
science with art has thus far been rendered impossible 
by reason of the wide prevalence of purely speculative 
views. The speculative philosophy of the Middle Ages 
still projects its baleful influence over our institutions of 
learning. Abstract ideas are still regarded as of inore 
vital importance than things. Statesmen, lawyers, litte- 
rateurs, poets, and artists are more highly esteemed than 
civil engineers, machinists, and artisans. Mr. Smiles, in 
his excellent work on the Huguenots, has shown that 
England owes to the French and the Flemish immigrants 
" almost all her industrial arts and very much of the most 
valuable life-blood of her modern race."* Commentin<r 



* "la short, wherever the refugees settled they acted as so many 
missionaries of skilled work, exhibiting tlic best practical examples of 
diligence, indiislry, and Ihrift, and teaching (ho English people in the 



186 MANUAL TRAINING. 

upon tliis fact in his work on " Hereditary Genius," Mr. 
Francis Galton says, 

"There has been another emigration from France of 
not unequal magnitude, but followed by very different re- 
sults, namely, that of the revolution of 1789. It is most 
instructive to contrast the effects of the two. The Prot- 
estant emigrants were able men, and have profoundly 
influenced for good both our breed and our history ; on 
the other hand, the political refugees had but poor aver- 
age stamina, and have left scarcely any traces behind 
them."* 

This is the testimony of a distinguished student of 
biology ; and it is to the effect that the refugee artisan is 
of immense value to the country where he finds an asy- 
lum, while the refugee politician is of no value at all. 
We should naturally say, our author having made this 
important discovery will make much of it. First of all, 
he will deduce the conclusion that if the refugee politi- 
cian is of no value to the country where he finds an asy- 
lum, the home politician is an equally unimportant factor 
in the social problem. Then he will make an exhaustive 
study of the industrial class as the chief basis of his prop- 
ositions and speculations on the subject of the science of 
life. I^ot at all. Mr. Galton, in his work on " Hered- 
itary Genius," offers another striking illustration of the 
repressive force of habit and the influence of popular 
prejudice. In his classifications of men according to 

most effective manner the beginnings of those various industrial arts 
in which they have since acquired so much distinction and wealth." — 
"The Huguenots," p. 107. By Samuel Smiles. New York: Har- 
per & Brothers, 1867. 

* "Hereditary Genius," p. 360. By Francis Galton, F.R.S., etc. 
New Yorli: D. Appleton & Co., 1880. 



POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS. 187 

their professions, witli a view to tlie inquiry whether 
"genius, talent, or wliatever we term great mental ca- 
jDacity, follows the law of organic transmission — runs in 
families, and is an affair of blood and breed" — in such 
classifications Mr. Galton forgets for the time being that" 
there is an industrial class. lie runs through the entire 
social scale, from " the judges of England between 1660 
and 1865," not omitting Lord Jeffreys, down through 
statesmen, commanders, literary men, poets, musicians, 
men of science, j)ainters, divines, the boys in Cambridge, 
oarsmen, and wrestlers of the JSTorth Country, but has 
no word to say of the civil engineers, or of the invent- 
ors — those immortal men whose monuments in stone 
and iron exist in ev^ery corner of England. 

Buckles's caustic remark, "the most valuable addi- 
tions made to legislation have been enactments destruc- 
tive of preceding legislation, and the best laws which 
have been passed have been those in which some former 
laws have been repealed," does not aj)ply to the works 
of the civil engineers, inventors, and mechanics of Eng- 
land or of any other country. Their works live after 
them and never fail to reflect honor upon them. The 
"acts" of the inventor may be amended but they are 
never repealed. Each inventive step, however short and 
apparently unimportant, constitutes a substantial link in 
the chain of progress ; and it is a substantial link, be- 
cause it invariably contains a hint of the next sequen- 
tial step. 

Mr. Galton is an original thinker of great power, and 
an untiring investigator. In contrasting the politician 
with the artisan he discriminates admirably. lie finds 
that the politician is of no value, practically, to the com- 
munity, while the artisan is of almost inestimable value ; 



188 MANUAL TRAINING. 

and this conclusion he states curtly, without appearing to 
care a rush for the public sentiment which reverences 
politics and so-called statesmanship. But when he " makes 
up his jewels," so to speak, on the subject of " hereditary 
genius," Mr. Galton, as already remarked, forgets that it 
is worth while to consider the class of men who in the 
last hundred years have literally almost created a new 
world. AVhy is this ? The late Mr. Horace Mann an- 
swered the question long ago, and he answered it so well 
that his answer is here reproduced in exteiiso : " Man- 
kind had made great advances in astronomy, in geome- 
try, and other mathematical sciences, in the writing of 
history, in oratory and in poetry, in painting and in 
sculpture, and in those kinds of architecture which may 
be called regal or religious, centuries before the great 
mechanical discoveries and inventions which now bless 
the world were brought to light; and the question has 
often forced itself upon reflecting minds Avhy there was 
this pr&posterousness, this inversion of what would ap- 
pear to be the natural order of progress ? Why was it, 
for instance, that men should have learned the courses 
of the stars and the revolution of the planets before they 
found out how to make a good wagon-wheel ? Why was 
it that they built the Parthenon and the Coliseum be- 
fore they knew how to construct a comfortable, healthful 
dwelling-house? Why did they build the Koman aque- 
ducts before they framed a saw-mill ? Or why did they 
achieve the noblest models in eloquence, in poetry, and 
in the drama before they invented movable types? I 
think yvQ have arrived at a point where we can unriddle 
this enigma. The labor of the world has been performed 
by ignorant men, by classes doomed to ignorance from 
sire to son ; by the bondmen and the bondwomen of the 



POWER OF STEAM AND CONTEMPT OF ARTISANS. l^S^ 

Jews, by the helots of Sparta, by the captives who j^assed 
under the Koman yoke, and by the villeins and serfs and 
slaves of more modern times." 

When the great educational reformer of Massachu- 
setts thus graphically pointed out slavery as the cause of 
the contempt in which the useful arts had been held 
from the dawn of history, four millions of men were 
kept in bondage and compelled to toil under the lash 
by one of the most enlightened nations of the earth. 
Later thirteen millions of people pledged "their lives, 
their fortunes, and their sacred honor" to the perpetua- 
tion of slavery, and half a million soldiers marched re- 
peatedly to battle to do or die in behalf of the right (?) 
of one man to buy and sell the bodies of his fellow-men. 

There is, then, a logical reason for Mr. Galton's neg- 
lect of the artisan class. Slavery in its most odious form 
not only existed in the heart of a so-called "free" nation 
twenty -five years ago, but dared Liberty to a deadly 
contest. 'Nor were the upholders of slavery without 
moral support among the governments and peoples of 
the world. The government of England, of which Mr. 
Galton is a subject, under cover of a pretended neu- 
trality aided the American slaveholders' Confederacy in 
sweeping Freedom's ships from the sea ; and the great 
families of England, the families cited by Mr. Galton in 
support of his proposition that genius "is an affair of 
blood and breed " — those great families were well pleased 
when Freedom's shij)s went down and Freedom's armies 
retreated before the assaults of the slave confederacy. 

Tins somewhat extended reference to Mr. Galton is 
not intended to impugn his good faith as an author. Its 
design is simply to show that tlic influence of slavery is 
not yet extinct ; that it still moulds ideas, controls habits 



190 MANUAL TRAINING. 

of tliouglit, inspires literary men, and permeates litera- 
tm-e. In a word, the cause of the contempt in which 
the useful arts were held in Babylon in the time of He- 
rodotus was in full force in this country down to the 
date of the issuance of Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of 
emancipation ; and it is scarcely necessary to observe 
that the British Constitution grew out of the feudal sys- 
tem, which was only another name for slavery. It is a 
proverb in England to this day that it is safer to shoot a 
man than a hare ; and the sentiment of the j)roverb is a 
complete justification of human bondage, since it implies 
that property rights are more sacred than the rights of 
man. Thus slavery has kept its brand of shame upon 
the useful arts for thousands of years, and the mind of 
man has been so deeply impressed thereby that it does 
not react now that slavery is extinct. Like the slave re- 
leased from bondage, who still feels the chain, still winces 
and shrinks from the imaginary scourge, the mind of 
man continues to revolve automatically in the old chan- 
nels. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 191 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC 
EDUCATION. 

The Past tjTannizes over the Present by Interposing the Stolid Re- 
sistance of Habit. — Habits of Thought like Habits of the Body 
become Automatic. —There is much Freedom of Speech but very 
little Freedom of Thought : Habit, Tradition, and Reverence for 
Antiquity forbid it. — The Schools educate Automatically. — A glar- 
ing Defect of the Schools shown by Mr. John S. Clark, of Boston. 
— The Automatic Character of the Popular System of Education 
shown by the Quincy (Mass.) Experiment. — Several Intelligent 
Opinions to the same Effect. — The Public Schools as an Industrial 
Agency a Failure. — A Conclusive Evidence of the Automatic 
and Superficial Character of prevailing Methods of Education in 
the Schools of a large City. — The Views of Colonel Francis W. 
Parker. — Scientific Education is found in the Kindergarten and 
the Manual Training School. — "The Cultivation of Familiarity 
betwixt the Mind and Tilings." — Colonel Augustus Jacobson on 
the Effect of the New Education. 

All reforms must encounter the stolid resistance of 
habit. It is not less tyrannical because it is a negative 
force. It braces itself and holds back Avith all its might. 
It is in this manner that the past dominates the present. 
This automatic habit of mind is precisely like certain 
automatic habits of the body which operate quite inde- 
pendently of any act of volition. For example : " When 
we move about in a room with the objects in which we 
are quite familiar, we direct our steps so as to avoid 
them, without being conscious wliat they are or what we 
are doing ; we see them, as we easily discover if we try 
to move about in the same way with our eyes slmt, but 



192 MANUAL TKAINING. 

we do not perceive them, the mind being fully occupied 
witli some train of tliouglit,""^ In tlie same way the 
mind under certain conditions becomes an automaton, 
constantly revolving old thoughts after the causes that 
gave rise to them have ceased to operate. Piano-forte 
playing affords an excellent illustration of this automatic 
action of the mind. "A pupil learning to play the piano- 
forte is obliged to call to mind each note, but the skil- 
ful player goes through no such process of conscious 
remembrance ; his ideas, like his movements, are auto- 
matic, and both so rapid as to sur23ass the rapidity of 
succession of conscious ideas and movements."f 

Freedom of speech and freedom of thought are catch- 
]3enny phrases. There is much of the former, but very 
little of the latter. Speech is generally the result of au- 
tomatic thought rather than of ratiocination. Indepen- 
dent thought is of all mental processes the most difficult 
and the most rare ; habit, tradition, and reverence for 
antiquity unite to forbid it, and these combined influ- 
ences are strengthened by the law of heredity. The ten- 
dency to automatic action of the mind is still further 
promoted by the environment of modern life. The 
crowding of populations into cities, and the division and 
subdivision of labor in the factory and the shop, and 
even in the so-called learned professions, have a tenden- 
cy to increase the dependence of the individual upon the 
mass of society. And this interdependence of the units 
of society renders them more and more imitative, and 
hence more and more automatic both mentally and phys- 
ically. 

* "Body and Mind," p. 22. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New 
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 
t Ibid., p. 26. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 193 

Anotlier powerful influence contributes to the same 
end. The schools educate automatically. The}^ train 
the absorbing powers of the brain, but fail to cultivate 
the faculties of assimilation and recreation, and neglect 
almost wholly to develop the power of expression. Mr. 
John S. Clark, of Boston, has made this point of the 
failure of the schools to train the brain-power of exj)res- 
sion to its utmost so plain that it is here reproduced in 
full, as follows : 

" Studying the functions of the brain, we find that for 
educational purposes it may be likened to an organism 
with a threefold form, of working, an organism wath a 
power of absorption, a power of assimilation and recrea- 
tion, and a power of expressing or giving out. The 
force or character of a brain is measured entirely by its 
expressing power, by what comes out of it. Examining 
a little closer, we find that the brain absorbs through all 
the five senses, while for expressing purposes it makes 
use of but two of these senses, or rather of but two 
organs of these senses — 
the tongue and the hand. 
Fig. 1 is a simple dia- 

gram represen tmg a brain ---__;;^*\ X^-^.^3!!f^°' 

with the five senses placed 
on one side, as means of 
absorbing power, while on 

the other side the tongue and the hand arc placed as 
organs of exj^ressing power. The other function of 
the brain, that of assimilation and recreation, cannot of 
course be graphically represented. It may, however, be 
said to be the result of the action of the other two func- 
tions. Now, the equipping of a brain, or the healthy 
education of a brain, consists in giving it expressing 




194 MANUAL TRAINING. 

power through the tongue and the hand, coextensive 
with the power of absorption and the power of re- 
creation. 

Applying our popular schemes of education to the 
brain, and especially those based on the 3-E, idea of edu- 
cation, we find what is indicated in Fig. 2, that provision 
has been made for greatly distending the absorbing side 
of the brain, while for the expressing side, the practical 
side, provision has been limited to the use of the tongue 
in speech and to the hand in writing. If now we follow 
the result of this brain equipment into practical life, we 
find that speech and writing, as means for expressing 



Reading. 

Mathematics. 

Geography, 

Grammar. 

History. 

Language."?. 

Physiology. 

Literature. 

Natural Hi tnry. 

Theoretical Sciences. 




Fig. 2 



thought, have their applications mainly in the commer- 
cial and financial employments and the professions, and 
only incidentally in the industrial and mechanical em- 
ployments. With such an inadequate and one-sided 
brain equipment it is not possible in any broad, prac- 
tical way to bring thought or brain-power to the service 
of industry. The fact so generally admitted, that we 
are getting so few intelligent artisans or mechanics from 
our scheme of public education, that we turn out pupils 
of both sexes with a decided repugnance to industrial 
labor, is an attestation to the truth of this statement. 
The simple fact is that our education is not broad 
enough on the expressing side of the brain, that too 
much attention has been given to the absorbing side of 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 195 

this organ, that no adequate provisions have been made 
whereby it can discharge its power in work connected 
with the industries. 

" In Fig. 3 a remedy for this defect is indicated in the 
addition of the study of graphic and aesthetic art, through 
drawing, and of training in the manual arts, to the pre- 
vious brain equipment. Observe where these features 
come in the scheme — on the expressing side of the brain 
and in the service of the hand, thus giving the brain 
ample power to discharge thought in its most complete 
form for use or for beauty. With these features added 
to the brain equipment its power of expressing thought 

Reading. 

Mathematics. 

Geography. 

Grammar. 

History, 

Languages. 

Pbysiology. 

Literature. 

Natural History. 

Theoretical Sciences. 

Practical Sciences. 

in all practical directions will be coextensive with its ab- 
sorbing and recreating powers ; and just as soon as the 
public can clearly see that in the outcome of our public 
education there is no respecting of persons or of classes, 
that pupils are trained for honest labor with their hands 
as well as to living by their wits, are taught to produce 
something, to create values by the action of their brain 
through the work of their hands, a much deeper interest 
in public education will not only be manifested, but gen- 
erous provisions for its support will also be given."* 
The charge that the schools educate automatically 

* Address delivered before the Philadelphia Board of Trade and 
the Franklin Institute, June C, 1881. 

1> 




196 ' MANUAL TRAINING. 

rather than rationally is of such vital importance that 
it should be sustained by the best attainable proof. 
Strong proof is at hand in the history of the so-called 
Quincy (Mass.) experiment. 

In 1878 doubt of the efficiency of the schools of Nor- 
folk County, long indulged, culminated in action by the 
Association of School Committees and Superintendents. 
It was insisted by certain members of the committee that 
the existing methods were "about as good as human in- 
telligence could devise," and by others that the people 
were getting "no adequate returns for the money ex- 
pended under the system in general use." It was re- 
solved to institute a searching investigation, and the 
standard for the measurement of the acquirements of 
pupils adopted was, " a reasonable degree of ability to 
read, to write legibly, correctly, and grammatically, and 
to deal readily with simple mathematics after about eight 
years of schooling." 

The association selected Mr. George A. Walton, an 
experienced educator, to make the examination of the 
schools of the county, and the number of pupils exam- 
ined exceeded three thousand. In their preface to Mr. 
Walton's report the gentlemen of the association say : 

" Publicity, discussion, and discontent are wholesome 
things to apply to school management in Massachusetts. 
That this is a fair sample of the results now accomplished 
cannot be questioned. But though they may not be flat- 
tering to our pride, we yet believe that they are as good 
as can be obtained in any other county in Massachusetts, 
or, indeed, of any other State where similar tests are 
applied in a similar manner. If any school authorities 
elsewhere doubt the truth of this statement, let the ex- 
periment be tried in the schools of their county. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 197 

" The questions naturally arise, What is the cause of 
this lamentable ignorance ? and what is the remedy ? 
The answer to the former suggests the reply to the latter. 
Too much has been attempted in the schools. There has 
been a slavish adherence to the text-books, and no room 
given for freedom and originality of thought. Rules 
have been memorized, and the children taught to recite 
from the text-book, while they have not had the slightest 
conception of the true meaning of the subject. . . . 

" The rules and exceptions in grammar are faithfully 
committed to memory, and most intricate sentences can 
be successfully analyzed, the phrases separated, and the 
modifiers named in true grammatical style, while the pu- 
pils who have undergone such severe training in this re- 
spect are unable to present their own thoughts concisely 
or clearly, or even cor^rectly, upon paper. The memory 
is cultivated, and the reason allowed to slumber. 

" In arithmetic the pnpils show a readiness to solve 
a problem when they are able to fit it to some rule that 
they have learned ; but when they are given a simple 
question out of the regular course, they are like a shi^) at 
sea without rudder or compass." 

This is the severest and most sweeping criticism ever 
passed upon our American common-school system, and it 
emanates from its friends and the friends of universal 
education. 

Mr. Walton says of reading, as taught in the ISTorfolk 
County schools, " As for any systematic analysis by which 
the pupil learns to make a careful and independent study 
of his piece, it is but little practised in the schools even 
of the grammar grade ;" and he declares that reading, 
without comprehending the ideas of wliich the words 
are mere signs, " is not merely useless, but dangerous, 



198 MANUAL TRAINING. 

just in proportion to the facility with, which the words 
are called." 

Of the results of his examinations in penmanship Mr. 
Walton sa3^s, " Most of the faults in the writing indicate 
imperfect teaching." Of his examinations in spelling he 
says that " the commonest words are misspelled when used 
in sentences or composition, while words of difficult or- 
thography are spelled Avith accuracy when dictated for 
spelling." For example, he says, " The words ' Y\^hose,' 
' which,' and ' father,' when spelled orally, were generally 
correct, but when written in sentences they were fre- 
quently in many schools, in a majority of cases, errone- 
ous." No test could more clearly demonstrate the purely 
mechanical character of the methods of instruction than 
this of a comparison between the pupils' oral and written 
spelling. The average of excellence in spelling the three 
simple words "which, whose, scholar," of the primary 
grade for the whole county of E'orfolk, as found by Mr. 
Walton, was the exceedingly low one of 55.9, the basis 
being 100. 

The ingenuity in bad spelling of this grade of pupils, 
who had been at least four years in school, is well illus- 
trated by the example of the word " carriage," written 
as follows : " Garage, carrage, craidge, caradg, carege, car- 
riag, carrige;" and of the word "sleigh," written "salj^, 
slay, slaig, slaigh, slagh, slaw, sleig, sleugh, sleight, sligh, 
sley, slew, slave, sleygh ;" and of the word " Tuesday," 
written " Tusgay, tuestay, toesday ;" and of the word 
" Wednesday," written " wanesday, wedenyday, Wederns- 
day, wed nest, Wenday, Wendsday, wensday, wenesday, 
wensdaw, wenze, Wenzie, AVendsstay, wenstday, Wesday, 
Whensday, winday, Windday, Winsday," etc. 

The word "scholar" presented one hundred and sixty 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 199 

different erroneous spellings ; that of "depot" fifty, among 
which were the following : "Deappow, deppowe, deaphow, 
deapohoe, teapot, doopo," and "bepo." An exercise, in 
spelling by both grades of pupils, the " primary," com- 
posed of pupils from eight and a half to ten and a half 
years old, and the "grammar," composed of pupils from 
twelve and a half to fifteen and a half years old, showed 
errors of which the following are examples : Any, spelled 
ane and enny ; along, alond and alon ; amongst, amunt ; 
animals, anables ; arithmetic, rithmes ; asTced, asted ; heau- 
tiful, beuful; heen, ben, bene, and bin; hy-and-hy, bimeby; 
coat, coot, coth, cote, goat, and coate ; Boston, bostone ; 
hoy, poy, and bou ; city, sitty ; eggs, ages ; custard- jpie, 
ousted puy ; coming, comin, commun, gomming, and 
comming. 

An exercise in composition developed the following 
specimen errors : " The was two boys ; They was two 
boys ; How is all the boys ? Things that was good ; They 
is not many here I know ; He come to school ; I see liim 
yesterday ; He asked cyrus what he done that day ; I had 
saw him ; he had wore a coat," etc. 

The examinations in mathematics yielded similar re- 
sults to those developed in reading, writing, spelling, and 
composition. Mr. Walton says, " If instead of this [the 
routine method of the school] the pupil should be com- 
pelled to deal with real things, and to find his answer by 
studying the conditions of his problem, the fiction which 
arithmetic now is to most pupils would become to them 
a reality."* 

* "The New Departure in the Common Schools of Quincy," by 
Charles F. Adams, Jr., and the "Ecport of Examination of Schools 
in Norfolk County, Mass.," by George A. AValton. Boston : Estes 
& Lauriat, 1881. 



200 MANUAL TRAINING. 

The prime difficulty is here stated. The schools deal 
in "fictions." In the language of the Norfolk County 
coHimittee, " The memory is cultivated and the reason 
allowed to slumber." K'ow, if to every fact memorized 
the pupil were required to apply the test of reason to 
analyze it and find out its relation to other facts, and fix 
it with all its relations in his mind, he would possess cer- 
tain solid information of an ascertained practical value. 
It is very simple. It is making the pupil think for him- 
self by showing him how to think for himself instead 
of thinking for him. Of course this is object-teaching. 
In the reading-lesson the pupil is required to know the 
meaning of the words of which it is composed in or- 
der to read with correct expression. When required 
to spell a word orally he is also required to write it. 
In the study of arithmetic he is shown certain objects, 
blocks of cubical and other forms, and required to ap- 
ply the rules of the book to the ascertainment of their 
contents. In grammar the analysis of the sentence is 
followed by the writing of it, and the construction of 
other sentences involving similar principles in the art of 
composition, and so on. 

This is the kindergarten system now rapidly coming 
into high favor as an essential preliminary step in educa- 
tion. It is also the system of the manual training school. 
Under that system the pupil is not merely told that the 
saw is a thin, flat piece of steel with teeth used for cut- 
ting boards and timbers ; a saw is placed in his hand and 
he is taught to use it : and so of all the hand and ma- 
chine tools of the trades. He stands at the forge, bends 
over the moulding-form, shoves the plane in the carpen- 
ter-shop, presides at the turning-lathe, that ingenious in- 
vention of Maudslay — an automaton truer than the human 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 201 

eye, more cunning and more accurate than tlie human 
liand ; executes plans for patterns and then makes the 
patterns, and finally, from the faint lines he has traced 
on paper, constructs a machine, breathes the breath of life 
(steam) into its veins, and with it moves mountains ! 

In further suj^port of the charge that the schools edu- 
cate automatically, and hence superficially, the following 
intelligent opinions are cited : 

Charles Francis Adams, Jr., remarks that the com- 
mon schools of Massachusetts cost $4,000,000 a year; 
and adds, " The imitative or memorizing faculties only 
are cultivated, and little or no attention is paid to the 
thinking or reflective powers. Indeed it may almost be 
said that a child of any originality or with individual 
characteristics is looked upon as wholly out of place in a 
public school. ... To skate is as difficult as to write; 
probably more difficult. Yet in spite of hard teaching 
in the one case and no teaching in the other, the boy can 
skate beautifully, and he cannot write his native tongue 
at all."* 

Mr. Edward Atkinson says, "We are training no 
American craftsmen, and unless we devise better meth- 
ods than the old and now obsolete apprentice system, 
much of the perfection of our almost automatic mech- 
anism will have been achieved at the cost not only of the 
manual but also of the mental development of our men. 
Our almost automatic mills and machine-shops will be- 
come mental stupefactories."f 

Prof. Barbour, of Yale College, says, " Our schools are 

* " Scientific Common-school Education." — Harper's New Monthh/ 
Magazine, November, 1880, pp. 935, 939. 

f "Elementary Instruction in the Mechanic Arts." — Scribncr's 
Monthly, April, 1881, p. 903. 



203 MANUAL TRAINING. 

suffering from congestion of the brain : too much thought 
and too little putting it in practice." 

An English observer of our public schools says, " They 
teach ajjparently for information, almost regardless of de- 
velopment. This system develops no special individual- 
ity or power, forms few habits of observation, benefits 
little except the memory, and herein lies its great weak- 
ness." 

The late Mr. Wendell Phillips said, " Our system stops 
too short, and as a justice to boys and girls as well as to 
society it should see to it that those whose life is to be 
one of manual labor should be better trained for it." 

Mr. Wickersham, late Superintendent of Public In- 
struction for the State of Pennsylvania, says, "It is 
high time that something should be done to enable our 
youth to learn trades and to form industrious habits and 
a taste for work." 

Dr. Punkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology, says, " Public education should touch practical 
life in a larger number of points ; it should better fit all 
for that sphere in life in wdiicli they are destined to find 
their highest happiness and well-being." 

Opinions of this character might be multiplied almost 
indefinitely. They reflect the general sentiment that, as 
an industrial agency, the public school is a failure ; but 
its value as an enlightening and civilizing agency is not 
therefore underestimated. It was not established as an 
industrial agency ; it was established as a bulwark of lib- 
erty, and nobly did it fulfil its mission. The colonial 
fathers had a horror of ignorance, and as a barrier against 
it they raised the public school. But they were without 
industrial interests in the higher departments of skilled 
labor, and without commerce in a large way. Lord Shef- 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 203 

field said that tlie American colonies were founded with 
the sole view of securing to England a monopoly of their 
trade, and Lord Chatham declared that they had no right 
to manufacture even a nail or a horseshoe. Even after 
the Revolution, in 1784, the commerce of the country 
was so insignificant that eight bales of cotton shipped 
from South Carolina were seized by the customs authori- 
ties of England on the ground that so large a quantity 
could not have been produced in the United States ! 

These humble conditions no longer exist, and to object 
to the expansion of the public - school system to meet 
the requirements of new exigencies is to ignore the logic 
and march of events. The nations are running an in- 
dustrial race, and the nation that applies to labor the 
most thought, the most intelligence, will rise highest in 
the scale of civilization, will gain most in wealth, will 
most surely survive the shocks of time, will live longest 
in history. In the race for industrial supremacy we are 
not at the front. It is a fact to be pondered that we are 
exchanging the j^roducts of unskilled for skilled labor 
with the nations of Europe. In the course of a year, for 
example, England exports of raw material and food only 
about $150,000,000 in value, while her exports of manu- 
factures aggregate about $850,000,000 in value. On the 
other hand, our exports consist almost entirely of raw 
material and food, their annual value being about 
$800,000,000, while of manufactures we export only a 
beggarly $75,000,000 worth, and our imports of manu- 
factures are of the annual value of about $250,000,000. 
In crude, uneducated, unskilled labor capacity we have 
grown much more rapidly than in the departments of 
educated, skilled labor ; and in the exact ratio of this 
growth of unskilled over skilled labor we arc behind the 

9- 



804 MANUAL TRAINING. 

age. We are industrially ill-balanced. We are selling 
brawn and buying tbouglit — cunning, invention, genius ; 
exhausting our physical manhood and impoverishing a 
virgin soil. "We are suffering from a paucity of skilled 
labor, and we hesitate to apply the needed and obvious- 
ly adequate remedy — the training of the youth of the 
country in the elements of the useful arts, in the public 
schools. 

A final and conclusive evidence of the verity of the 
charge that prevailing methods of education are auto- 
matic, and hence superficial in their character, is found 
in an examination test recently made in one of the public 
schools in a large American city, in the department of 
mathematics. The superintendent begins to distrust his 
own system of abstract instruction, and resolves to test 
the acquirements of certain classes of pupils ranging from 
ten to twelve years of age. He submits a series of ques- 
tions in number, which are promptly solved either orally 
or in chalk on the black-board, showing a complete mas- 
tery of the subject from the abstract side, or point of 
view. To test the practical value of the knowledge thus 
exhibited the superintendent repeats his series of ques- 
tions, apj)lying them to things. For example : He passes 
six cards to a pupil, and requests that one-half of them be 
returned. This question having been promptly and cor- 
rectly answered by the return of three of them, and the 
six cards being again placed in the hands of the pupil, 
the second question is propounded, namely, "Please give 
me one -third of one -half of the cards in your hand." 
The pupil is puzzled ; he fumbles the cards nervously, 
blushes, and returns a wrong number or becomes entirely 
helpless and "gives it u]3." This question, or some other 
question of similar general import, is submitted to each 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 205 

member of tlie class -witli a like unfavorable result in 
eight or nine cases in a total of ten cases. The superin- 
tendent is astonislied ; he is more than astonished, he is 
deeply chagrined ; for he knows that the kindergarten 
child of six or seven years of age, with the blocks, would 
answer his series of questions correctly eight or nine 
times in a total of ten. 

It is impossible to conceive of a more striking illustra- 
tion of the prime defects of automatic education than is 
afforded by the foregoing described experiment. It sus- 
tains and justifies the severe criticism of the schools by 
Mr. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., in his magazine article 
of 1880, in the course of which he says, 

" From one point of view children are regarded as 
automatons; from another, as india-rubber bags; from 
a third, as so much raw material. They must move in 
step and exactly alike. They must receive the same 
mental nutriment in equal quantities and at fixed times. 
Its assimilation is wholly immaterial, but the motions 
must be gone through with. Finally, as raw material, 
they are emptied in at the primaries, and marched out 
at the grammar grades — and it is well !"* 

The testimony of Col. Francis W. Parker, of the Cook 
County (Illinois) ISTormal School, is to the same effect. 
He says, 

" The most important work of to-day is to collect, rec- 
oncile, and apply all the principles and methods of edu- 
cation that have been discovered in the past, into one 
science and art of teaching. This would certainly radi- 
cally change all our school W'Ork in this country. AVhen 



* " Scientific Common-school Education." — Harper's New Monthly 
Magazine, November, 1880, p. 937. 



206 MANUAL TKAINING. 

this is done the ground will be made ready for new ad- 
vances in the incomplete science of education. Because 
a complete science has not yet been discovered is a very 
poor reason for not applying what we already know. 
What specific changes would the application of known 
mental laws, in teaching about which all psychologists are 
in agreement, bring about ? For it is only by a sharp 
comparison of what is now done according to tradition 
and custom in our schools, with that which can be done 
by the application of the simplest principles of teaching, 
that the value of the true art of instruction may be in 
some degree appreciated. 

"To illustrate this it may be mentioned that little 
children have been taught to read, in the past, and a great 
majority of them are now taught, by a method that is 
utterly opposed to a mental law, about wdiich there can 
be no dispute among those who know anything of the 
science of teaching. I refer to the ABC method. Near- 
ly three hundred years ago Comenius discovered a rule 
of teaching which may be said to embrace all rules in its 
category — ' Things that have to be done should be learned 
by doing them.' This rule is so simple and plain that 
every one, except the teachers, has adopted and used it 
since man has lived upon the earth. If I am not very 
much mistaken, the school-master for the last fifty years 
has been incessantly inventing ways of doing things in 
the school-room by doing something else. We try to 
teach the English language by rules, definitions, analyses, 
diagrams, and parsing. Before the poor innocent child 
can write a single sentence correctly, we teach the painful 
pronunciation of words without the grasping of thought 
as reading. We vainly endeavor to give children a 
knowledge of number by teaching figures, the signs of 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 207 

number. We cram our victim's mind full of empty, 
meaningless words, instead of inspiring and develoj)ing 
it bj tbe sweet and strong realities of thought. This 
futile struggle to do things by doing something else is 
to-day costing the people of this country millions and 
millions of hard-earned dollars; and it is much to be 
feared that it will one day cost their children the bless- 
ings of a free government. This is a serious charge. 

" The three hundred thousand teachers of this country 
are as faithful, honest, and earnest as any other class of 
active workers. If, then, these great truths in education 
be at the doors of our educators, why do they not acquire 
and use them ? The answer is not far to seek. ISTot one 
teacher in five hundred ever makes a practical, thorough 
study of the history of education, to say nothing of the 
science. 

" The tremendous projecting power of tradition stands 
stubbornly in the way of progress in education. It can 
only be met and overcome by the most thorough search- 
ing and indefatigable study of the child's nature, and of 
the means by which the possibilities for good in God's 
greatest creation may be realized."* 

The change from automatic to scientific education 
ought not to be very diflicult. It has been made in 
the kindergarten. It consists in substituting things in 
the place of signs. The boy should be taught to read in 
school as he will be required to read ; to write as he will 
be required to write ; and to cipher as he will be required 
to cipher, when he becomes a man. 

In teaching chemistry, for example, there should be 

* Letter to the author under date of April, 1883, and by him re- 
produced in a communication published in the Chicago Tribune, 
April 23, 1883. 



208 MANUAL TRAINING. 

a laboratory with the necessary ilkistrative apparatus. 
In teaching geography, in addition to the books and the 
globe, the form of tlie continent should be moulded in 
sand, with coast lines, mountain ranges, rivers, canals, har- 
bors, cities, etc. In teaching number the pupil should 
have the things and parts of things, represented by signs, 
in his hands. In teaching mechanics the pupil should 
handle the saw, the plane, the file, the hammer, and the 
chisel, and stand at the bench, the forge, and the turn- 
ing-lathe. It is in this way only that the pupil can be 
taught the power of expressing, as Mr. Clark puts it, 
" what has been absorbed on the receptive side." 

Mr. MacAlister illustrates the force of Mr. Clark's di- 
agrams in a sentence : " We must not close our eyes to 
the fact that by far the larger number of men in every 
civilized community are workers to whom a skilled hand 
is quite as important as a w^ell filled head."* The prevail- 
ing methods of teaching fill the head but do not provide 
for assimilation, recreation, and expression. 'Now to as- 
similate, to reduce to practical value and put to use facts 
memorized, and to create, the power of expression is an 
essential prerequisite ; creating is expressing ideas in con- 
crete form. But under the old regime of education only 
two modes of expression are provided — speech and wi'it- 
ing. A third mode — drawing — has been very generally 
adopted. Drawing, however, is only the first step, an 
incomplete step, so to speak, of expression. It is a sign, 
an outline, of a thing. What we want is the thing itself. 
That thing can only be produced at the forge, the bench, 
or the lathe ; and this is manual training in the arts. 

* Mr. James MacAlister, Superintendent of Schools of the City of 
Philadelphia, Pa., at the meeting of the American Institute of In- 
struction, Saratoga, N. Y., .July 13, 1883. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 209 

Wliat manual training will do for the j)upil is ex- 
pressed in tlie following terse paragraph by Col. Augus- 
tus Jacobson : 

" The boy leaving school should carry with him me- 
chanical, business, and scientific training, fitting him for 
whatever it may become necessary for him to do in the 
world. I would secure for society the advantage of all 
the brain capacity that is born and all the training it can 
take. It is possible and practicable to let every child of 
fair capacity start in life from his school a skilled worker, 
with the principal tools of all the mechanical employ- 
ments, an athlete with the maximum of health possible 
to him, and thoroughly at home in science and literature. 
The child so trained would, when grown, be to the ordi- 
nary man of to-day what Jay-Eye-See is to an ordinary 
plough-horse." 



210 MANUAL TRAINING. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDU- 
CATION— Continued. 

The Failure of Education in America shown by Statistics of Railway 
and Mercantile Disasters. — Shrinkage of Railway Values and Fail- 
ures of Merchants. — Only Three Per Cent, of those e'ntering Mer- 
cantile Life achieve Success. — Business Enterprises conducted by 
Guess: Cause, Unscientific Education. — Savage Training is better 
because Objective. — Mr. Foley, late of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, on the Scientific Character of Manual Education 
— Prof. Goss, of Purdue University, to the same Effect — also Dr. 
Belfield, of the Chicago Manual Training School. — Students love 
the Laboratory Exercises. — Demoralizing Effect of Unscientific 
Training. — The Failure of Justice and Legislation as contrasted 
■with the Success of Civil Engineering and Architecture. 

A STEiKiNG illustration of the defective character of 
both public and private systems of education, in the 
United States, is afforded by the statistics of commercial, 
railway, and other business failures. In 1877 a careful 
compilation of figures in regard to the shrinkage of rail- 
way values showed the following result : 

" In round numbers, eighteen hundred inillions of dol^ 
lars, or thirty-eight per cent, of the capital reported as 
invested in two hundred of our railway companies alone, 
is wholly unproductive to the investors, and the greater 
part is wholly lost to them. This is sufficiently appalling, 
but when we consider how many companies that have 
managed to keep up the interest on their bonds have 
wholly, or almost, ceased to pay any interest on their cap- 
ital stock, which stock, in turn, has shrunk to seventy- 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 211 

five, fifty, twenty-five, ten, in some cases ^y^ per cent, of 
its par value, it will seem to be a reasonable conclusion 
that the actual shrinkage and loss to somebody on the 
face value of railway investments in the United States 
has been fully fifty per cent. !"* 

In view of this startling exhibit it is evident that in 
the projection, construction, and management of the rail- 
ways of the United States there has been gross incom- 
petency. 

In 1881 Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co., the well-known 
commercial agents, showed that of the wholesale mer- 
chants doing business in the city of Chicago in 1870 
fifty per cent, had failed, suspended, or compromised 
with their creditors. 

Forty years ago Gen. Dearborn, a prominent citizen 
of Chicago, declared that not more than three per cent. 
of the individuals who embark in trade end life with suc- 
cess. The success meant, doubtless, is unbroken solven- 
cy during the business experience of the merchant, and 
the final accumulation of a competence. The mercantile 
ranks in the United States afford many instances of in- 
dividual merchants and firms wdio have settled or com- 
promised with their creditors several times, and finally 
succeeded — succeeded at the expense of their creditors. 
But this is not the success meant by Gen. Dearborn. 
This statistical information, furnished by Messrs. R. G. 
Dun & Co., tends to confirm, approximately, the verity 
of the common remark that in trade not one in a hun- 
dred succeeds. 

Let us suppose that three merchants in a hundred so 
conduct their business as never to ask their creditors for 

* The Chicago Railway Age. 



213 MANUAL TRAINING. 

a favor, never to " settle " for 50 or 25 cents, but always 
pay " dollar for dollar," and come out in the end rich. 
This is strictly legitimate success. It would be very in- 
teresting to learn what becomes of the other ninety-seven 
merchants. Most of them go down after a few years, 
never again to emerge above the surface of commercial 
affairs. They live on salaries, enter tlie ranks of the 
speculative class, or become genteel paupers. But doubt- 
less seven at least of the ninety-seven " compromise " and 
" settle " themselves over the breakers, and finally achieve 
success. So that of the ten successful merchants out of 
a hundred those who succeed at the expense of their cred- 
itors are as seven to three of those who win success by 
the highest degree of mercantile merit. 

With ninety utter failures, seven successes which in- 
volve the misfortune or wreck of others, and only three 
untarnished successes in a hundred, the general ambition 
to enter mercantile life is simply unaccountable. Of 
course the small number of successful merchants have to 
calculate upon the failures which will inevitably occur. 
They must discount the losses they are sure to incur 
through those failures — provide for them by increasing 
the otherwise sufficient profit of each transaction. In 
this way the public pays the cost of each failure. In 
other words, the consumer is taxed to pay the expense 
of ninety complete failures, and seven partial failures, in 
every hundred mercantile experiments. This expense 
aercrreo-ates scores of millions of dollars in this country 
alone, every year. The sum of losses by the failure of 
merchants in good seasons is very large, and in seasons 
of commercial depression it is vast. 

It is evident that ninety-seven in every hundred mer- 
chants mistake their avocation. Only three in a hundred 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 213 

are exactly fitted for the business they undertake. They 
are morally the "fittest" who survive by virtue of abil- 
ity and integrity ; the seven who survive by levying 
contributions on their creditors may also be regarded as 
the " fittest " according to the Darwinian theory. Of the 
ninety who go down without even a struggle to " settle " 
or " compromise," they answer to the received definition 
of dirt — " matter out of place." 

The investigation made by Messrs. R. G. Dun & Co., 
wdiich resulted in the statistical information here repro- 
duced and commented upon, w^as brought about by the 
assertion in 1881 of a life-insurance agent that fifty per 
cent, of the wholesale merchants doing business in the city 
of Chicago in 18T0 had meantime failed, suspended, or com- 
j^romised with their creditors. Out of this investigation 
the question logically springs, " Is not failing in business 
made too easy ?"* If " compromises," " settlements," and 
" failures " carry w^itli them no disgrace, it is but natural 
that thousands should take the risk of them in the con- 
test for tlie great prizes which are the reward of success. 
The distinction in the public mind between the three 
mercliants in a hundred who succeed legitimately and 
the seven who succeed by questionable " compromises " 
or " settlements " is very slight ; and too many of the 

* "Mercantile honor is held so high in some countries that the 
calamity of bankruptcy drives men mad. In France there are nu- 
merous instances of almost superhuman struggles on the part of 
ruined merchants to regain, by patient effort and pinching economy, 
their lost station in the business community. Cesar Birotteau, Bal- 
zac's hero of such a struggle, dies from excess of emotion in the hour 
of his triumph. ' Behold the death of the just !' the Abbe Loraux 
exclaims, as he regards, with lofty pride, the expiring merchant." — 
" Ten-minute Sketches," p. 220. By Charles II. Ham. Chicago and 
New York : Belford, Clark & Co., 1884. 



214 MANUAL TRAINING. 

ninety who fail utterly retire witli large suras of money 
which belong honestly to their creditors. Doubtless the 
life-insurance agent, in depicting the perils of mercantile 
ventures, urged the propriety of the merchant fortifying 
himself against disaster by insuring his life for the bene- 
fit of his family. This is a legitimate argument when 
addressed to the merchant in solvent condition ; but the 
life-insurance agent's intimate acquaintance with the 
shaky finances of nine-tenths of the commercial commu- 
nity teaches him that a large share of the money he re- 
ceives in premiums, comes not from the merchant, but 
from the merchant's creditors, who will soon be called 
upon, in the natural course of events, to consent to a 
composition of his claim, while the shaky merchant will 
retire with a paid-up policy of insurance in favor of his 
family. 

It is quite j)lain that in nine cases out of ten the mer- 
chant who carries a large policy of insurance on his life 
actually pays for it out of his creditors' instead of his 
own money. To be sure, it may be said that the nine 
merchants hope and expect to succeed as well as the one. 
But is not it the duty of the merchant who owes large 
sums of money to think more of providing means for 
the payment of his immediate debts than of laying up a 
support for himself and family in the event of failure ? 
Some disgrace ought to attach to failure in business ; that 
is to say, disgrace enough to make the merchant cautious 
and economical, with a Aaew, not to his own protection 
in the event of failure, but to the protection of his cred- 
itors, and of his own reputation as a business man. 

These failures, on so vast a scale, of railway enterprises, 
and the almost total Avreck of mercantile ventures, show 
that the business of this country is done, as a Yankee 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION, 215 

miglit say, "by guess," or as the mechanic of the old 
regime would say, " by the rule of thumb." The conclu- 
sion is hence irresistible that the youth of the United 
States are not so educated as to fit them for the conduct, 
to a successful issue, of great business enterprises. And 
this is an impeachment of what is regarded, on the whole, 
as the best system of popular education in operation in 
the world. A system of education wliich turns out nine- 
ty-three or ninety-seven men who fail, to three or seven 
men who succeed in business, must be very unscientific. 
If the savage system of education were not better adapt- 
ed to the savage state, the savage would perish from the 
earth in the process of civilization. The savage bends 
his ear to the ground and robs the forest of its secrets, 
not three times in a hundred, but ninety and nine times. 
Ninety-nine times in a hundred the savage traces the 
footsteps of his enemy in the tangled mazes of tlie path- 
less wood. 

In "Aborigines of Australia""-^ Mr, G. S. Lang states 
that "one day while travelling in Australia he pointed 
to a footstep and asked whose it was. The guide glanced 
at it without stopping his horse, and at once answered, 
' Wliitefellow call him Tiger.' This turned out to be cor- 
rect ; which was the more remarkable as the two men be- 
longed to different tribes, and had not met for two years." 
Among the Arabs it is asserted that some men know 
every individual in the tribe by his footstep. Besides 
this, every Arab knows the printed footsteps of his own 
camels, and of those belonging to his immediate neigh- 
bors. He knows by the depth or sliglitness of the im- 
pression wliether a camel was pasturing, and therefore 

* "Aborigines of Australia," p. 24. 



216 MANUAL TRAINING. 

not carrying any load, or mounted by one person only, 
or heavily loaded. The Australian will kill a pigeon 
with a spear at a distance of thirty paces. The Esqui- 
mau in his kayak will actually turn somersaults in the 
water. After giving many illustrations of the skill of 
various races of savages, Sir John Lubbock says, 

" What an amount of practice must be required to ob- 
tain such skill as this ! How true, also, must the weapons 
be ! Indeed it is very evident that each distinct type of 
flint implement must have been designed for some dis- 
tinct purpose." He adds, " The neatness with which the 
Hottentots, Esquimaux, North American Indians, etc., are 
able to sew is very remarkable, although awls and sinews 
would in our hands be but poor substitutes for needles 
and thread. As already mentioned (in page 332), some 
cautious archseologists hesitated to refer the reindeer 
caves of the Dordogne to the Stone Age, on account of 
the bone needles and the works of art which are found in 
them. Tlie eyes of the needles especially, they thought, 
could only be made with metallic implements. Prof. 
Lartet ingeniously removed these doubts by making a 
similar needle for himself with the help of ilint ; but 
he might have referred to the fact stated by Cook in his 
first voyage, that the 'New Zealanders succeeded in drill- 
ing a hole through a piece of glass which he had given 
them, using for this purpose, as he supposed, a piece of 
jasper."* 

The education which enables the savage to make these 
extremely nice adjustments of means to ends is scientific. 
The observation, for example, of the Arab who draws 



* "Prehistoric Times," pp. 544, 548. By Sir Jolm Lubbock, Bart., 
M.P. New Yorli: D. Appletou & Co., 1875. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 217 

such accurate conclusions from the " printed footstep of 
the camel," if applied to the problems of civilized life, 
would result in success, not failure. 

The excellence of this savage training consists in its 
practical character, in its perfect adaptation to the end in 
view. For example, the Esquimau boy is not instructed 
in the theory of turning somersaults in the water, in his 
kayak. He sees his father perform the feat ; he is given 
a kayak and required to perform it also. The result is 
early and complete success. So of the Arab. In trav- 
ersing the desert it is important for him to read every 
sign, to translate every mark left in the sand. Upon tlie 
accuracy of his observation his life may often dej^end. 
The print of the camel's footstep may tell him whether 
he is, soon or late, to meet friend or foe. Hence from 
early childhood his faculty of observation is trained until 
it soon becomes as delicate and nice as the sense of touch 
of a blind, deaf mute. Sir John Lubbock thinks that a 
great amount of practice must be required to achieve so 
much skill ; but the results are due probably more to the 
nature, than to the extent, of the practice. It is the ex- 
cellence of the training that produces results which ex- 
cite wonder and admiration. The savage is indolent ; he 
works only that he may eat, and he works well simply 
because he has been taught objectively instead of sub- 
jectively. 

The difference in results between the best and the 
poorest methods of instruction is very great, as witness 
the testimony of Mr. Thomas Foley, late instructor in 
forging, vise-work, and machine-tool work in the scliool 
of mechanic arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology. He says, 

"It is a great waste of time to spend two or three 



218 MANUAL TRAINING. 

years in acquiring knowledge of a given business profes- 
sion or trade that can be acquired in the short space of 
twelve or thirteen days under a proper course of instruc- 
tion. Twelve days of systematic school-shop instruction 
produces as great a degree of dexterity as two or more 
years' apprenticeship under the adverse conditions which 
prevail in the trade-shop."* The manual training meth- 
ods are the same as those which enable the savage to 
perforni such feats of skill. They are the natural and 
hence most efficient methods of imparting instruction. 

The manual training school is a kindergarten for boys 
fourteen years of age. Miss S. E. Blow, in formulating 
the theory of the kindergarten, describes the methods of 
the savage's school, and those of the manual training 
school, as follows : 

" It is a truth now universally recognized by educators 
that ideas are formed in the mind of a child by abstrac- 
tion and generalization from the facts revealed to him 
through the senses ; that only what he himself has per- 
ceived of the visible and tangible properties of things 
can serve as the basis of thought; and that upon the viv- 
idness and completeness of the impressions made upon 
him by external objects, will depend the clearness of his 
inferences and the correctness of his judgments. It is 
equally true, and as generally recognized, that in young 
children the percejotive faculties are relatively stronger 
than at any later period, and that while the understand- 
ing and reason still sleep, the sensitive mind is receiving 
those sharp impressions of external tilings which, held 
fast by memory, transformed by the imagination, and 

* Report on "The Manual Element in Education," p. 30. By John 
D. Runkle, Ph.D., LL.D., Walker Professor of Mathematics, Insti- 
tute of Technology, Boston, Mass. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 219 

finally classified and organized tlirough reflection, result 
in the determination of tliouglit and the formation of 
character. 

" These two parallel truths indicate clearly that the 
first duty of the educator is to aid the perceptive faculties 
in their work by supplying the external objects best cal- 
culated to serve as the basis of normal conceptions, by 
exhibiting these objects from many different stand-points 
— that variety of interest may sharpen and intensify the 
impressions they make upon the mind, and by presenting 
them in such a sequence that the transition from one 
object to another may be made as easy as possible." '^^ 

This admirable exposition of the theory of scientific 
education solves the mystery which has always enveloped 
savage skill. It also affords a philosophic explanation of 
the fact discovered by Mr. Foley, namely, that the stu- 
dent of the manual training school acquires as much 
knowledge in one hundred and twenty hours as the ap- 
prentice of the machine-shop does in two years. In a 
word, it shows exactly why scientific education is so in- 
comparably superior to automatic education. Mr. Foley 
asserts, in substance, that the scientific methods of the 
manual training school are twenty times as valuable to 
the student as the unscientific methods of the trade-shop 
are to the apprentice. 

In a familiar letter to the author. Prof. Gossf shows 
why the methods of the manual training school are so 
very valuable. lie says : 

* " The Kindergarten. An address, delivered April 3, 1875, before 
the Normal Teachers' Association, at St. Louis, Mo." 

f Prof. William F. M. Goss, a graduate of the school of mechanic 
arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and at present in- 
structor in the mechanic arts department of the Purdue University. 

10 



220 MANUAL TRAINING. 

" In sucti a school, or course, a student is taught to per- 
form a series of operations, involving practice with a va- 
riety of tools, on pieces of suitable material. It is not to 
be supposed that his ability to make a certain piece is 
directly valuable, for the experience of a lifetime may 
never require him to make it again. It is not expected 
that while making the piece he will learn a number of 
formulated facts relating to his work, and its application 
to other work, for that is not the best way to learn. IS^or 
can we expect him to acquire a high degree of hand skill 
(accuracy and rapidity of movement combined), for this 
his limited time will not permit. But he does this : he 
works out a practical mechanical problem with every 
piece he makes. He sees how the tool must be handled, 
and how the material operated on behaves. He comes to 
understand why the tool cuts well in some directions and 
not so well in others; and all the time he queries to 
himself where it was that he saw a joint like the one he 
is making. He is an investigator — as much so as a stu- 
dent in chemistry. His mind must always guide his 
hand; his reasoning opens new fields of thought with 
every stroke of the chisel. 

" A boy ten years old, who was a member of a class 
under my direction in Indianapolis in 1883, is reported 
to have said, 'Why, mother, I never looked at the doors 
and windows so much in all my life as I have since I be- 
gan at the wood-working school.' 

" I tell my students how to go to work when they are 
likely to make mistakes, and how mistakes may be avoid- 
ed. In operating along the line directed they thorough- 
ly understand what they are doing, and why they do it. 
They see on all sides of their work. 

"If I have several different tools for doing work of 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 331 

tlie same character, I frequently give a student first one 
and then another, until he has tried them all. Then 
I ask him which he likes best, and why. Suppose we are 
to make a drawing-board. The class having already been 
made familiar with the principles governing the shrink- 
age and warping of woods, is asked in what way the cleats, 
to prevent warping, may best be fastened to the ends. 
The question is left open for a day or two, and sketches 
are submitted and views exchanged on the subject. 

" I frequently ask my students to pass to me, in writ- 
ing, as many facts (not in the form of a composition) as 
they can think of regarding certain stated features of 
their work — not facts to be obtained from books, but 
from things they have seen and with which they are fa- 
miliar. The replies are often remarkable for accuracy 
and force of statement. . . . 

" The manual training school that does not by its work 
inspire thought and encourage investigation is poor in- 
deed ; the school that assumes its work to be mind train- 
ing hj hand practice is the ideal school, and the school 
that will succeed. . . . 

" My answei* to your second and third questions is al- 
ready evident. I consider an hour in the shop as valuable 
for its intellectual training as an hour of book-study, and 
two hours in the shoj) as valuable as two hours of study. 
I do not think that a student can take two hours of shop- 
work in addition to a full course of outside study ; but I 
am convinced that two hours in the shop can be made to 
take the place of one hour of study without extra burden 
to the student. Therefore, this being done, the student 
will get as much again intellectual benefit from the shop 
as he would get if the shojD-work equivalent in time were 
given to book-study." 



223 MANUAL TRAINING. 

This description of the mental operations which ac- 
company the shop exercises of the manual training 
school shows the intimacy of the relations existing be- 
tween the brain and the hand. It shows how they act 
and react upon each other, and affords an explanation of 
the remark of Dr. Belfield,* that the laboratory exercises 
are in fact a great strain upon the mental constitution of 
the student. This observation of Dr. Belfield, one of the 
most distinguished teachers of the old regime in the 
United States, entirely justifies the claim made in behalf 
of the scientific character of manual training as an edu- 
cational agency, for it shows that such training is in no 
sense automatic. If manual training is a great strain 
upon the mental faculties, it must be because the use of 
tools stimulates such faculties to great activity. And if 
this is true, the mental discipline derived from manual 
training must be proportionally great. This is a pivotal 
point; for if the observation of Dr. Belfield is well 
founded in fact and reason, it proves to a demonstration 
the high educational value of manual training — proves its 
superiority over all the methods of the old regime. 

Prof. Goss says, " The manual training school student 
is an investigator — as much so as a student in chemis- 
try. His mind must always guide his hand, his reason- 
ing opens new fields of thought with every stroke of the 
chisel. He sees on all sides of his work."f And Dr. 

* Henry H. Belfield, A.M., Ph.D., Director of the Chicago Manual 
Training School. 

\ "No extent of acquaintance with the meanings of words can 
give the power of forming correct inferences respecting causes and 
effects. The constant habit of drawing conclusions from data, and 
then of verifying those conclusions by observation and experiment, 
can alone give the power of judging correctly." — "Education," p. 88. 
By Herbert Spencer. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 223 

Belfield says that these varied operations of the mind 
cause a severe mental strain. It would be difficult to 
find a better exemplification of scientific education than 
a course of training which exercises simultaneously the 
powers of both body and mind, a course which with every 
fresh burden put upon the mind puts new vitality into 
the body. This is, indeed, the very opposite of auto- 
matic education, and we may well call it scientific educa- 
tion. 

Another leaf from the experience of Dr. Belfield is 
worthy of reproduction here. On the 20th of February, 
1884, he took the sense of the students in his school on 
the question whether or not they should indulge in a 
vacation on Washington's birthday anniversary. Some- 
what to his surprise the vote was almost unanimous in the 
affirmative. He acceded to the wishes of the students, 
but no sooner was the announcement made, than he was 
besieged with applications from nearly all of them for 
permission to convert the holiday into a work-day in the 
laboratories ! Dr. Belfield has been compelled to post a 
peremptory order against the occupancy of the school 
laboratories by the students on Saturdays, which are reg- 
ular vacation days. 

l^atural training is scientific training. The fondness 
of the student for the manual training school is evi- 
dence of its scientific character. He is fond of it because 
it is natural. Miss Blow says of the child : " Only what 
lie himself has perceived of the visible and tangible prop- 
erties of things can serve as the basis of thought, and 
upon the vividness and completeness of the impressions 
made upon him by external objects will depend the 
clearness of his inferences and the correctness of liis 
judgments." This is the education both of the kinder- 



33-4 MANUAL TRAINING. 

garten and the manual training school, and it brightens, 
stimulates, and develops, while automatic education stu- 
pefies, 

Mr. Foley, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, declares, as the result of his experience, as 
already stated, that tlie scientific methods of the manual 
training school are twenty times as valuable to the stu- 
dent as the unscientific methods of the trade-shop are to 
the apprentice. But we have shown in a former chapter 
that the training of the trade-shops of England, during 
the past one hundred and fifty years, has been better than 
that of the English schools and universities ; in a word, 
that England is more indebted for her greatness to her 
apprentice system than to her school system. It follows 
tliat the school system of England must have been almost 
indescribably poor. 

That the system of popular education in the United 
States, which is much more comprehensive, and presum- 
ably better, than that of England, is very poor indeed in 
results, is shown by the statistics of railway and mercan- 
tile disasters ; and it is scarcely necessary to remark that 
these disasters show prevailing methods of education to 
be as defective morally as they are mentally. The rea- 
son of this is that, being automatic, they lead neither to 
the discovery of truth nor to the detection of error. It 
is easy to juggle with words, to argue in a circle, to make 
the worse appear the better reason, and to reach false 
conclusions which wear a plausible aspect. But it is not 
so with things. If the cylinder is not tight the steam- 
engine is a lifeless mass of iron of no value whatever. A 
flaw in the wheel of the locomotive wrecks the train. 
Through a defective flue in the chimney the house is set 
on fire. A lie in the concrete is always hideous ; like 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 225 

murder, it will out. Hence it is that the mind is liable 
to fall into grave errors until it is fortified by the wise 
counsel of the practical hand. 

It is obvious that the reason of the demand for the 
manual element in education is not so much that indus- 
trial interests require to be promoted, as that mental op- 
erations may be rendered more true, and hence more sci- 
entific. What we need more than we need a better class 
of mechanics is a better class of men — men of a higher 
grade both morally and intellectually. The study of 
things so steadies and balances the mind that the atten- 
tion being once turned in that direction great results 
soon follow, as witness, the history of discovery and in- 
vention in England. 

The world moves very fast industrially, but very slow 
morally and intellectually. Mechanics stand the test of 
scrutiny far better than merchants. Civil engineers and 
architects are more competent than railway presidents, 
lawyers, judges, and legislators. The reason of this fact 
is that mechanics, civil engineers, and architects are edu- 
cated practically in the world's shops and the world's 
technical schools. They are trained in things, while mer- 
chants, railway presidents, lawyers, judges, and legislators 
have only the automatic word-training of the schools. It 
is notorious that criminals are not punished in this coun- 
try. Suppose there were such a failure of bridges as there 
is of justice. That is to say, suppose eight-tenths of the 
bridges constructed, whether for railway or other pur- 
poses, should fall within a few months of their comple- 
tion. What would be thought of the technical schools 
whence the civil engineers graduate ? 

Ninety-seven merchants in a hundred fail. Suj)pose 
ninety-seven buildings in a hundred, constructed under 



226 MANUAL TRAINING, 

the direction of architects, should tumble down over the 
heads of their occupants six months after their erection. 
The education of the architects would no doubt be regard- 
ed as defective. 

Buckle says of English legislation, "The best laws 
which have been passed have been those by which some 
former laws were repealed."* It will be admitted that 
the same is true of American legislation. f In other 
words, the average legislator is wiser in the statutes he 

* "History of Civilization ia England," p. 200. By Henry Thom- 
as Buckle. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1864. 

" In a paper read to the Statistical Society in May, 1873, Mr. Jan- 
son, Vice-president of the Law Society, stated that from the statute of 
Merton (20 Henry III.) to the end of 1872 there had been passed 
18,110 public acts, of which he estimated that four fifths had been 
wholly or partially repealed. He also stated that the number of pub- 
lic acts repealed wholly or in part, or amended, during the three years 
1870-71-72 had been 3532, of which 2759 had been totally repealed. 
To see whether this rate of repeal has continued I have referred to 
the annually issued volumes of the ' Public General Statutes ' for the 
last three sessions. Saying nothing of the numerous amended acts, 
the result is that in the last three sessions there have been totally re- 
pealed, separately or in groups, 650 acts belonging to the present reign, 
besides many of preceding reigns. . . . 

"Seeing, then, that bad legislation means injury to men's lives, 
judge what must be the total amount of mental distress, physical 
pain, and raised mortality which these thousands of repealed Acts of 
Parliament represent." — "The Man versus the State," pp. 50, 51. By 
Herbert Spencer. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 

f " So thoroughly have the conscience and intelligence of the North 
apprehended these facts [neglect to educate and enlighten the freed- 
men], that while the Nation has done nothing they have given in pri- 
vate charity, intended to remedy this evil, nearly a million dollars a 
year for nearly twenty years. This is the instinct of a people versus 
the stupidity of their legislators. ... Of the true character of the South 
he [the author] was, like all his class, profoundly ignorant, almost as 
ignorant as the men who made the Nation's laws." — " An Appeal to 
Ccesar," pp. 52, 56. By A. W. Tourgee. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 227 

repeals than in the bills he enacts. What if the incom- 
petency of the legislator were paralleled by that of the 
machinist ? Suppose ninety-seven in every one hundred 
locomotives should break down on the "trial-trip," and 
be returned to the builder's shop for remanufacture. 
Such a result would be an impeachment of the education 
of the locomotive builder. 

Ninety -seven in every hundred boys who graduate 
from the public schools and embark in mercantile pur- 
suits fail. Suppose ninety -seven in every hundred 
watches made in the American watch factories should 
prove to be worthless. The watch companies would, 
no doubt, soon be in the hands of the sheriff. But, as 
a matter of fact, the Elgin IS'ational Watch Company, 
for example, makes twelve hundred watches a day, and 
each and every one of them is an almost perfect time- 
keeper. 

There is, then, no such failure of the arts as there is of 
justice ; no such failure of mechanics as of merchants ; no 
such failure of locomotives and watches as of legislation. 
It follows that the education of artisans is better, more 
scientific, than that of merchants, judges, lawyers, and 
legislators. And this is a very significant fact w^ien it 
is considered that the State does much for education in 
helles-lettres and scarcely anything for education in the 
arts and sciences.* 



* The reason why statutes fail more frequently than steam-engines 
and bridges is not wholly because the legislator has to deal with hu- 
man nature and the mechanic with inanimate matter. Steam and 
electricity are subtle forces, but man has quickly mastered them and 
successfully applied them to a variety of uses. 

It is not to the interest of any one that the machinist should make 
a defective locomotive, for example ; but it is often to the interest of 

10* 



228 MANUAL TRAINING. 

some one that the legislator should enact vicious laws. Vicious 
statutes are enacted with a design to injure the public in order that 
certain individuals may be benefited thereby. 

If the mind should act as honestly in legislation as the hand does 
in construction, statutes would not have to be repealed yearly. 

"We have fallen into the habit of regarding education as a polite 
'accomplishment having very little to do with the real business of 
life ; but this is not the fact. Education begins in the cradle and 
continues through life ; and it makes the man what he is. If he 
goes to the penitentiary it is his education that sends him there. If 
he is sent to the General Assembly of the State or to the Congress of 
the Nation, and there helps to enact vicious laws, it is his education 
that is responsible for such laws. If the man as a citizen sells his 
franchise at the polls, or his vote in the legislative hall, for money, it 
is the education he has received that is responsible for his baseness. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 229 



CHAPTER XX. 

AUTOMATIC CONTRASTED WITH SCIENTIFIC EDU- 
CATION— Continue. 

The Training of the Merchant, the Lawyer, the Judge, and the Leg- 
islator contrasted with that of the Artisan. — The Training of the 
Merchant makes him Selfish, and Selfishness breeds Dishonesty.—. 
Professional Men become Speculative Philosophers, and test their 
Speculations by Consciousness. — The Artisan forgets Self in the 
Study of Things. — The Search after Truth. — the Story of Palissy. 
— The Hero is the Normal Man ; those who Marvel at his Acts are 
abnormally Developed. — Savonarola and John Browru — The New 
England System of Education contrasted with that of the South. — 
American Statesmanship — its Failure in an Educational Point of 
View. — Why the State Provides for Education ; to protect Prop- 
erty. — The British Government and the Land Question. — The Thor- 
oughness of the Training given by Schools of Mechanic Art and In- 
stitutes of Technology as sliown in Things. — Story of the Emperor 
of Germany and the Needle-maker. — The Iron Bridge lasts a Cen- 
tury, the Act of the Legislator wears out in a Year. — The Cause 
of the Failures of Justice and Legislation.— The best Law is the 
Act that Repeals a Law; but the Act of the Inventor is never Re- 
pealed. — Things the Source and Issue of Ideas; hence the Neces- 
sity of Training in the Arts. 

There is a cause for the failure of the merchant, the 
lawyer, the judge, and the legislator, as well as for the 
success of the artisan. And the cause must be sought in 
the courses of training, respectively, of the two classes. 
Let us assume that the artisan and the merchant, the 
lawyer, the judge, and the legislator, graduate at the same 
time from the public high school or from Harvard or 
Yale. The merchant at once begins to trade, to buy and 
sell. He concerns himself with things only as they have 



230 MANUAL TRAINING. 

a value, either naturally arising from the law of demand 
and supply, or arbitrarily imposed by circumstances. His 
consideration of the relations of things is confined to the 
single question of the percentage of profit which may 
accrue to him from traffic in them. These are subjective 
processes of thought, and the merchant becomes absorbed 
in them to the exclusion of all other subjects. It goes 
without saying that he becomes intensely selfish. The 
struggle is one of mercantile life or death — ninety-three 
to ninety-seven in a hundred die, three to seven survive. 

Among merchants there is, hence, very little thought 
of the subject of justice, and no effort to discover truth. 
There must, at the end of the year, be a favorable bal- 
ance on the right side of the ledger, or the balance on the 
wrong side unerringly points the way to ruin. This is 
the post-school training of the merchant. That neither 
it nor his previous education renders him skilful we know, 
since he fails ninety-three to ninety-seven times in a hun- 
dred trials. Tliat subjective training does not and never 
can promote rectitude has been shown in a former chap- 
ter of this work. That merchants who compromise with 
their creditors, and subsequently accumulate fortunes, very 
rarely repay the debt formerly forgiven is a notorious 
fact. A Chicago merchant who himself repaid such a 
composition debt early in his career, states, at the end of 
twenty-five years' experience, that of compromises involv- 
ing several hundred thousand dollars, made by him in fa- 
vor of debtors, not one dollar has ever been repaid. 

Upon leaving school or college the lawyer, the judge, 
and the legislator at once apply themselves to books ; 
their subsequent training is exclusively subjective. Their 
ideas receive color from and are verified only by refer- 
ence to consciousness. Subjective truths have no rela- 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 231 

tions to things, and hence are susceptible of verification 
only through consciousness. They are, therefore, mere 
speculations after all, often ingenious but always prob- 
lematical. The result of such training is selfishness — 
selfishness of a very intense character ; and, as has been 
already shown, selfishness is merely another name for in- 
justice. 

On the other hand the artisan devotes himself to things. 
His training is exclusively objective. His ideas flow out- 
ward ; he studies the nature and relations of things. In 
this investigation he forgets self because his life becomes 
a grand struggle in search of truth ; and the discovery of 
truth in things, if not easy, is ultimately sure of attain- 
ment, since harmony is its sign, and its opposite, the false, 
is certain of exposure through its native deformity ; for 
however alluring a lie may be made to appear in the ab- 
stract, in the concrete it is an unmasked abomination. 

From the false the artisan intuitively shrinks. He can 
only succeed by finding the truth, and embodying it in 
some useful or beautiful thing which will contribute to the 
comfort or j^leasure of man. Hence his watchword is util- 
ity, or, beauty in utility. Of the engrossing character of 
this struggle the story of Bernard Palissy affords a sj)len- 
did illustration. Palissy was an artist, a student, and a 
naturalist, but poor, and compelled to follow the profes- 
sion of surveying to support his family. At the age of 
thirty he saw an enamelled cup, of Italian manufacture, 
which fired his ambition. Ignorant of the nature of 
clays, he nevertheless resolved to discover enamel, and 
entered upon a laborious course of investigation and ex- 
periment with that end in view. After many years of 
Herculean effort and indescribable privation, which beg- 
gared and estranged his family, and rendered him an ob- 



232 MANUAL TRAINING. 

ject of ridicule among bis neighbors, be aebieved a grand 
success. At a critical period of bis experiments, in tbe 
face of tbe indignant protests of his almost starving fam- 
ily, having exhausted his credit to tbe last penny, be con- 
signed to tbe flames of bis furnace tbe chairs, tables, and 
floors of his humble cottage, and continued to watch bis 
chemicals with all-absorbing attention, while his wife in 
despair rushed into tbe streets and made loud proclama- 
tion of tbe scandal. 

But Palissy was more than a potter ; he was a Chris- 
tian, a philosopher, and an austere reformer. Notwith- 
standing he had been petted and patronized as an inge- 
nious artisan by the royal family of France, be was final- 
ly cast into prison under charge of heresy. It was there 
that tbe remarkable interview with King Henry III. oc- 
curred, which immortalized Palissy as a hero. " My good 
man," said tbe king, "you have been forty-five years in 
tbe service of the queen, my mother, or in mine, and we 
have suffered you to live in your own religion, amid all 
tbe executions and tbe massacres. I^ow, however, I am 
so pressed by tbe Guise party and my people that I have 
been compelled in spite of myself to imprison these two 
poor women and you." " Sire," answered the old man, 
"the count came yesterday on your part, promising life 
to these two sisters upon condition of tbe sacrifice of 
their virtue. They replied that they would now be mar- 
tyrs to their own honor as well as for tbe honor of God. 
You have said several times that you feel pity for me ; 
but it is I who pity you, who have said, ' I am compelled !' 
That is not speaking like a king. These girls and I, who 
have part in the kingdom of heaven — we will teach you 
to talk royally. Tbe Guisarts, all your people, and your- 
self, cannot compel a potter to bow down to images of 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 233 

clay !"■" And Palissy the potter and heretic, at the age of 
seventy, died in the Bastile, proudly defying a king. 

The more absorbing the struggle for the discovery of 
truth becomes, the less room there is in the mind of man 
for selfishness ; and as selfishness recedes, justice assumes 
its appropriate place as the controlling element in human 
conduct. The hero is an honest man, that's all. 

' ' Though love repine, and reason chafe, 
There comes a voice without reply; 
'Tis man's perdition to be safe, 
When for the truth he ought to die." 

If all men were heroes — honest — there would be no oc- 
casion for heroism. If all education can be made scien- 
tific, all men can be made honest. The struggle to find 
truth is more natural than the struggle to succeed re- 
gardless of, or against, truth. The reason why what we 
call heroism appears so grand is this : the standards of 
public judgment become so perverted by long custom in 
the abuse of truth that normal conduct appears strange. 

When Palissy burned his chairs and tables in the cause 
of art, his family and his neighbors derided him, and de- 
nounced him as a madman, and in prison the king urged 
him as a friend to save himself from death by recanting 
his assertion of the right of freedom of religious opinion. 
Palissy was a hero neither to his family, his friends, nor 
his king;f but he was right, and his discovery and his 

* "Palissy the Potter," Vol. II., pp. 187, 188. By Henry Morley. 
Boston : Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1853. 

•f- "I had nothing but reproaches in the house ; in place of consola- 
tion, they gave me maledictions. My neighbors, who had heard of 
this affair [the failure of an experiment], said that I was nothing but 
a fool, and that I might have had more than eight francs for the 
tilings that T had broken ; and all this talk was brought to mingle 



234 MANUAL TRAINING. 

firmness rendered him immortal. We now know, three 
hundred years farther down the course of time, that Pa- 
lissy's struggle over the furnace in the cause of art was • 
mentally and morally normal, while the opposition he 
encountered was abnormal ; and that his defiance of the 
king was mentally and morally normal, while his perse- 
cution was abnormal and cruel. 

Palissy's mind was trained naturally in the direction 
of rectitude, while the minds of the millions of men who 
permitted him to die unfriended, a prisoner in the Bas- 
tile, were developed unnaturally. Their education was 
unscientific, and their characters were hence deformed. 
The one symmetrical character was that of Palissy, the 
lover of truth, who was ready to starve, if need be, for 
his art, and ready to die for his faith. The thin ranks 
of the so-called heroes of the ages of history constitute 
the measure of the poverty of the systems of education 
that have prevailed among mankind. These so-called 
heroes are merely normally developed men — men who 
search for the truth, and having found it, honor it always 
and everywhere. They are peculiar to no clime, to no 
country, to no age. They are cosmopolitan, and the fact 
that they are honored after death by succeeding ages is 
proof positive of the world's progress, or rather of the 
progress of moral ideas. 

The civilization of Italy in the middle of the fifteenth 
century presents the most violent possible contrast to 
that of America in the last half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. But the one produced Savonarola, the hater of 
abuses in the Koman Catholic Church, and the other 



with ray grief." — "Palissy the Potter," Vol. I., p. 190. By Henry 
Morley. Boston : Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1853. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 235 

John Brown, the stern, uncompromising hater of human 
bondage. Four hundred years is a long period in the 
history of civilization, but the priest of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, and the farmer of the nineteenth, are as near of kin 
in spirit as if they had been born of the same mother, and 
reared in the same moral atmosphere. 

The true hero is always inexorable — as Savonarola in 
the presence of the majesty of a dying, remorse-stricken, 
half-repentant prince, and John Brown in the presence 
of his exultant but half-terrified captors. When Lorenzo 
di Medici lay terror-stricken, on his death-bed, Savonarola 
demanded of the dying prince, as the price of absolu- 
tion, a restoration of the liberties of the people of Flor- 
ence ; and this being refused, the priest departed without 
one word of peace. 

When John Brown, wounded and bleeding, lay a cap- 
tive at Harper's Ferry, listening to the taunts of angry 
Virginians, he said, calmly and firmly, " You had better 
— all you people of the South — prepai'e yourselves for a 
settlement of this question. It must come up for settle- 
ment sooner than you are prepared for it, and the sooner 
you commence that preparation the better for you. Tou 
may dispose of me very easily — I am nearly disposed of 
now — but this question is still to be settled — this negro 
question, I mean. The end of that is not yet."* 

There is nothing grander in history, whether real or 
mythological, than the picture of the humble priest of 
the fifteenth century, with no power except the justice 
of his cause, shaking thrones and making proud prelates, 
and even the Pope himself, tremble with fear ! And the 



* "The Public Life of Captain John Brown," p. 283. By John 
Redpath. Boston : Thayer & Elclridge, 1860, 



236 MANUAL TRAINING. 

exact parallel of this picture is found, four hundred years 
down the stream of time, in the person of the farmer, 
John Brown, defying the Constitution, law, and public 
sentiment of his country in the interest simply of the 
cause of justice. 

It has been shown through citations from the Walton 
report, as well as by the opinions of many competent 
witnesses, that the 'New England system of education, 
whether correct in theory or not, is, in actual operation, 
very defective. But at the time of its establishment it 
was the best system in existence. To it this country owes 
the quality of its civilization. The neglect of education 
by the Government of the United States is the most as- 
tonishing fact of its history. It is incomjorehensible how, 
with a comparatively excellent educational system in op- 
eration, and in full view in the New England, Middle, 
and "Western States, the ISTational Government could calm- 
ly and inactively contemplate the almost entire neglect 
of popular education in the States of the South, and ig- 
nore, from year to year, the steadily accumulating hor- 
rors of ignorance and vice which were destined to lead 
to such deplorable political and social results. 

The difference between the civilization of New Eng- 
land and that of South Carolina, for example, is exactly 
measured by the diiference between their respective edu- 
cational systems. New England undertook, at a very 
early day, to educate every class of its citizens ; South 
Carolina made a monopoly of education, confining it to 
a single class. 

It must be admitted that the American statesmanship 
of the whole period of our history has been scarcely less 
short-sighted than that of England under the Georges, 
which resulted in saddling upon her people a debt that 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 337 

they can never pay. If England liad provided a com- 
preiiensive and scientific system of popular education at 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, who doubts that 
the wars through which her debt was incurred would 
have been averted? If the Government of the United 
States had compelled the adoption of a scientific educa- 
tional system by the States of the South, who doubts 
that slavery would have peaceably passed away, and the 
occasion for war passed away with it ? 

The conspicuous failure of American statesmanship 
consists in a failure to appreciate the value of scientific 
education. It shows that good citizenship is impossible 
without good education — for good education and good 
citizenship are convertible terms. And it is easy to show, 
by the past, that to hesitate on the subject of education is 
to be lost.* 

Why do we provide for popular education? Is it out 
of pure generosity that the rich citizen consents to be 
taxed to joay for the education of his poor neighbor's 
children? Does the man who has no children willingly 
surrender a portion of his estate for the education of the 
children of others, as an act of benevolence ? Not at all. 
There is no security for property in a community devoid 
of education and consequent intelligence. Intelligence 
alone confers upon property a sacred character. In one 

* " If 3^ou examine into the history of rogues, you ^yill find that they 
are as truly manufactured articles as anything else, and it is just be- 
cause our present sj'stem of political economy gives so large a stimu- 
lus to that manufacture that you may know it to be a false one. We 
had better seek for a system which will develop honest men than for 
one which will deal cunningly with vagabonds. Let us reform our 
schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons." — 
"Unto This Last," p. 50. By John Ruskin. New York: John 
Wiley & Sons, 1883. 



238 MANUAL TRAINING. 

of two ways only can property be rendered secure in the 
owner's hands. It may be protected by a hired soldiery, 
through the force of arms, or through the force of a pub- 
lic sentiment enlightened by education. The reason why 
the poor but educated citizen would not lay violent hands 
on the rich citizen's property is the fact that he indulges 
the intelligent hope of himself acquiring property. Be- 
sides, the morals of a community are in the ratio of its 
intelligence. The indulgence of hope promotes self-es- 
teem, and self-respect, and these qualities react upon the 
moral nature. 

It should be borne in mind that while one of the 
main purposes of all governments is to preserve property 
rights, nearly all the governments of history have been 
shattered in pieces in the effort to fulfil this function of 
their existence. It may be said that there is never any- 
thing sacred about property unless it is honestly acquired. 
All the force of our own government was exerted in a 
vain effort to protect property in slaves. England has 
been compelled to disturb the property rights of the 
Irish landlords, and this is only the prelude to an attack 
upon the property rights of her own landlords. It was 
the ignorance of the English people hundreds of years 
ago that permitted the establishment of a land system 
which is now about to crumble in pieces, and in its fall 
wreck certain property rights. 

There is nothing sacred about property unless it is hon- 
estly acquired and honestly held ; and property can only 
be honestly acquired and honestly held, in communities 
intelligent enough to guard its acquisition, and continued 
possession, by just and adequate laws. It follows that edu- 
cation is the sole bulwark of the State, and so of property. 

The question of the first consequence is, therefore, 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 239 

always, What is the best system of education ? It is ob- 
vious, also, that the subject of cost should not enter into 
the discussion ; that the best education is the cheapest, 
is an indisputable proposition. We have seen that the 
New England system of education, which has spread over 
the whole country, is very much better than the system 
which prevailed in those States of the Union where slav- 
ery continued to exist down to 1864. But we have seen, 
also, that that system is very defective ; that it is auto- 
matic, and hence not natural, not practical, not scientific. 
It does not produce great merchants, great lawyers, great 
judgeSy or great legislators. That it does not, is abun- 
dantly shown by the fact that in mercantile life there are 
ninety-three to ninety-seven failures in every one hun- 
dred experiments; by the fact that there is notoriously a 
general failure of justice ; and by the fact that here, as in 
Great Britain, the chief business of statesmen is the un- 
doing of vit;;ious legislation. 

There is a system of training which produces a much 
higher average of culture than that of the public schools 
and the universities. We allude to the training received 
by the students of sjDCcial mechanical and technical insti- 
tutions, and by the apprentices in trade-shops. The proof 
of this is found in the world's railways, ships, harbors, 
docks, canals, bridges, telegraph and telephone lines, and 
in a thousand and one other manifestations of skill in 
art. In the adaptation of means to an end, and in nicety 
of construction, the mechanic and the civil engineer show, 
in innumerable ways, with what thoroughness both their 
minds and their hands have been trained. If mercantile 
operations were governed by such excellent rules in pro- 
jection, and by such precision in execution, ninety-seven 
merchants in a hundred would not go to the wall. 



340 MANUAL TRAINING. 

A story has lately gone the round of the public prints 
to the effect that, during a visit to a needle factory by the 
Emperor of Germany, a workman begged a hair of his 
head, bored an eye in it, threaded it, and handed it back 
to the monarch, who had expressed surprise that eyes 
could be bored in the smaller sizes of needles. It does 
not matter whether or not this story is literally true ; it 
illustrates the delicacy of modern mechanical operations. 
Hundreds of similar illustrations might be given, sliow- 
ing how marvellously skilful the hand has become. 

It is not claimed that the hand is a nicer instrument 
than the mind. As a matter of fact, in drilling the hole 
in the hair the mind and the hand work together — 
the mind directs the hand, we will say. The mind de- 
vises or invents a watch — every wheel, pinion, screw, and 
spring — and directs the hand how to make it, and how to 
set it up, and it ticks off the time. Why does the mind 
succeed so admirably when it employs the hand to exe- 
cute its will, but so ill when it devises and attempts, it- 
self, to execute ? How is it that the mind invents a watch 
which, being made by the hand, records the hour to a 
second, ninety-nine times in a hundred, but fails ninety- 
three to ninety-seven times in a hundred to devise and 
carry into execution a mercantile venture? How is it 
that the mind invents a steam-engine consisting of a hun- 
dred pieces, so that, each piece being made by a different 
hand, the machine shall, when set up, ninety-nine times 
in a hundred, at once perform the work of five hundred 
horses without strain or friction, but when it grapples with 
law and fact in the chair of lawyer or judge produces 
a most pitiable wreck of justice? How is it that the 
mind devises and the hand executes with such nice adap- 
tation of means to the end in view, a bridge, that re- 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 241 

sembles a spider's web, and jet bears tlionsands of tons 
and endures for ages, but when it undertakes ,to legis- 
late evolves statutes that wear out in a year? The first 
iron bridge constructed spanned the Severn, in England. 
It was opened to traffic a hundred years ago, but it is 
still a stanch structure likely to stand for centuries. 
"Where are the English statutes of that time ? Repealed 
to give place to a long line of others which in turn have 
been repealed. When the famous iron bridge across the 
Severn was constructed, English legislators were passing 
bills to compel the American colonies to trade only with 
the mother country, and to tax them without their con- 
sent. Lord Sheffield said, with charming frankness, that 
the colonies were founded with the sole view of securing 
to England a monopoly of their trade ; and Lord Chat- 
ham declared that they would not be permitted to make 
even a nail or a horseshoe. 

In 1516 Sir Thomas More denounced the criminal law 
of England, declaring that " the loss of money should not 
cause the loss of man's life."* But this humane and en- 
lightened sentiment had so little weight that during the 
reign of Henry YIII. seventy-two thousand thieves were 
hanged — at the rate of two thousand a year. In 1785 
twenty men were executed in London at one time for 
thefts of five shillings. The Lord Chief-justice and the 
Lord Chancellor agreed that it would be dangerous to 
repeal the law punishing pilfering by youths. In 1816 
the Commons passed a bill abolishing capital punishment 
for shoplifting — stealing the value of five shillings — but 
the Lords defeated it. Lord Ellcnborough, Chief-justice, 



* "The History of England," Vol. II., p. 83. By Harriet Mar- 
tineau. Philadelphia : Porter & Coates. 



243 MANUAL TRAINING. 

observing, peevishly, " Thej want to alter these laws 
which a century has proved to be necessary, and which 
are now to be overturned by speculation and modern 
philosophy."* 

The cause of these failures — of mercantile ventures, of 
justice, and of legislation — 'is this: Subjective mental 
processes are automatic, and hence they neither generate 
power nor promote rectitude ; they enfeeble rather than 
energize the brain. Men whose characters are formed 
by such educational processes never originate anything. 
They become selfish, they venerate the past, their eyes 
are turned backward ; hence, if they sometimes make a 
feeble effort to move forward they stumble. The law- 
yer, the judge, and the legislator are examples of this 
class. Their guide-books are musty folios in a dead lan- 
guage ; they look for " precedents " in an age whose civ- 
ilization perished with its language, and whose maxims 
and rules of life were long ago exploded. Such men can 
be compelled to move forward only by the lash of public 
opinion. Buckle, speaking of the reforms extorted from 
the legislators of England, says, 

"But it is a mere matter of history that our legisla- 
tors, even to the last moment, were so terrified by the 
idea of innovation that they refused every reform until 
the voice of the people rose high enough to awe them 
into submission, and forced them to grant what without 
such pressure they would by no means have conceded."f 

On the other hand, the inventor, the discoverer, and 
the artisan are always in the advance, and always moving 

* "The History of England," Vol. II., p. 85. By Harriet Mar- 
tineau. Pliiladelphia : Porter & Coates. 

f "History of Civilization," Vol. I., p. 361. By Henry Thomas 
Buckle. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1864. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 243 

forward. They never look back except to catcli the vital 
principle of the invention or discovery of yesterday for 
utilization in the improved machine of to-day. Their 
acts are never repealed because they never become odi- 
ous. They never become odious because they contain the 
germs of imperishable truth. They are never false ; they 
are suitable to their time and the stage of development ; 
they constitute links in the chain of progress. While the 
legislator is horrified at the thought of innovation, the 
inventor, the discoverer, and the artisan are electrified 
by the discovery of a new principle in physics, and de- 
lighted at its application in a new invention, and its 
practical operation in a new and useful machine. 

The difference in effects upon the mental and moral 
nature, between purely mental training and mental and 
manual training combined, is susceptible of logical ex- 
planation. It is only in things that the truth stands 
clearly revealed, and only in things that the false is sure 
of exposure."" Hence exclusively mental training stops 
far short of the objective point of true education. For 
if it be true that the last analysis of education is art, 
progress can find expression only in things — in the work 
of men's hands. And it is true ; for ideas are mere vain 
speculations until they are embodied in things. ISTor is 



* "To know the truth it is necessary to do the truth.". . . 

"We rightly seek the meaning of the abstract in the concrete, be- 
cause we cannot act in relation to the abstract, which is only a repre- 
sentative sign; we must give it a concrete form in order to make it a 
clear and distinct idea ; until we have done so we do not know that 
we really believe— only believe that we believe it. A truth is best 
certified to be a truth when we live it and have ceased to talk about 
it." — "Body and Will," p. 49. By Henry Maudsley, M.D. New 
York : D. Appleton & Co., 1884. 

11 



244 MANUAL TRAINING. 

this materialism unless all civilization is material ; for 
the prime difference between barbarism and civilization 
consists in the presence, in a state of civilization, of more 
things of use and beauty than are found in a state of bar- 
barism. To exalt things is not materialistic; they are 
both the source and issue of ideas, and the measure of 
civilization. Ideas and things are hence indissolubly' 
connected ; and it follows that any system of education 
which separates them is radically defective.* Exclusive- 
ly mental training does not produce a symmetrical char- 
acter, because at best it merely teaches the student how 
to think, and the complement of thinking is acting. Be- 
fore thoughts can have any influence whatever upon the 
world of mind and matter external to the mind origi- 
nating them they must be expressed. They may be ex- 
pressed feebly, through the voice, in words ; more dura- 
bly, and therefore more forcibly, with the pen, on paper ; 
more forcibly still in drawing — pictures of things ; and, 
with the superlative degree of force, in real things. 
The object of education is the generation of power. 

* "Prof. Huxley seems to hold that zoology cannot be learned with 
any degree of sufficiency unless the student practises dissection. In 
support of this position there are strong reasons. In the first place, 
the impression made on the mind by the actual' objects, as seen, han- 
dled, and operated upon, is far beyond the efiicacy of words or de- 
scription. And not only is it greater, but it is more faithful to the 
fact. While diagrams have a special value in bringing out links of 
connection that are disguised in the actual objects, they can never 
show the things exactly as they appear to our senses ; and this full 
and precise conception of actuality is the most desirable form of 
knowledge ; it is truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 
Moreover, it enables the student to exercise a free and independent 
judgment upon the dicta of the teacher." — "Education as a Science," 
p. 303. By Alexander Bain, LL.D. New York : D. Appleton & Co. , 
1884. 



AUTOMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 245 

But to generate and store np power, -whether mental or 
physical, or both, is a waste of effort, nnless tlie power is 
to be exerted. Why generate steam if there is no engine 
to be operated ? Steam may be likened to an idea which 
finds expression through the engine — a thing. Why 
store the mind with facts — historical, philosophical, or 
mathematical — which are useless until applied to things, 
if they are not to be applied to things ? And if they are 
to be applied to things, why not teach the art of so ap- 
plying them ? As a matter of fact, the system of ed- 
ucation which does not do this is one-sided, incom- 
plete, unscientific. Rousseau says, " Education itself is 
certainly nothing but habit." If this be true, it will 
be conceded that the habit of expressing ideas in things 
should be formed in the schools, because the chief way 
in which man is benefited is through the expression of 
ideas in things. The system of education which tends to 
form this habit is that of the kindergarten and that of 
the manual training school. These systems are one in 
principle. They are not new ; they at least date back to 
Bacon, who declared that he would " employ his utmost 
endeavors towards restoring or cultivating a just and le- 
gitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things." The 
kindergarten and the manual training school exactly re- 
alize Bacon's idea. The idea of the manual training 
school was in the mind of Comenius when he said, " Let 
things that have to be done be learned by doing them." 
It was in the mind of Pestalozzi when he said, " Educa- 
tion is the generation of power." It was in the mind of 
Froebel, not less than the kindergarten, wiien he said, 
" The end and aim of all our work should be the harmo- 
nious growth of the whole being." 
These are excellent definitions of education, and they 



246 MANUAL TRAINING. 

are sequential. If things that have to be done are 
learned by doing them, there will be in the course of the 
process a wholesome exercise of both body and mind, 
and this exercise will result in the generation of power 
— power to think well, and to do w^ell ; and the process 
being continued, the result cannot fail to be the harmo- 
nious growth of the whole being. This is scientific, as 
opposed to automatic, education.* 

* "Intellectual progress is of necessity from the concrete to the 
abstract. But regardless of this, highly abstract subjects such as 
grammar, which should come quite late, are begun quite early. Po- 
litical geography, dead and uninteresting to a child, and which should 
be an appendage of sociological studies, is commenced betimes, while 
physical geography, comprehensible and comparatively attractive to 
a child, is in great part passed over. Nearly every subject dealt with 
is arranged in abnormal order — definitions and rules and principles 
being put first, instead of being disclosed, as they are in the order of 
nature, through the study of cases. And then, pervading the whole, 
is the vicious system of rote learning — a system of sacrificing the 
spirit to the letter. . . . 

"A leading fact in human progress is that every science is evolved 
out of its corresponding art. It results from the necessity we are 
under, both individually and as a race, of reaching the abstract by 
way of the concrete, that there must be practice and an accruing 
experience with its empirical generalizations before there can be 
science." — "Education," pp. 61, 124. By Herbert Spencer. New 
York : D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PKOBLEM. 347 



CHAPTER XXI. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

EGYPT AND GREECE. 

Fundamental Propositions. — Selfishness the Source of Social Evil ; 
Subjective Education the Source of Selfishness and the Cause of 
Contempt of Labor; and Social Disintegration the Result of Con- 
tempt of Labor and the Useful Arts. — The First Class-distinction 
— the Strongest ]\Ian ruled ; his First Rival, the Ingenious Man. — 
Superstition. — The Castes of India and Egypt — how came they 
about? — Egyptian Education based on Selfishness. — Rise of Egypt 
— her Career; her Fall; Analysis thereof. — She Typifies all the 
Early Nations : Force and Rapacity above, Chains and Slavery 
below. — Their Education consisted of Selfish Maxims for the Gov- 
ernment of the Many by the Few, and Government meant the Ap- 
propriation of the Products of Labor. — Analysis of Greek Charac- 
ter — its Savapje Characteristics. — Greek Treachery and Cruelty. — 
Greek Venality.— Her Orators accepted Bribes. — Responsibility of 
Greek Education and Philosophy for the Ruin of Greek Civiliza- 
tion. — Rectitude wholly left out of her Scheme of Education. — 
Plato's Contempt of Matter : it led to Contempt of Man and all 
his "Works. — Greek Education consisted of Rhetoric and Logic ; all 
Useful Things were hence held in Contempt. 

It is a fundamental proposition of this work that self- 
ishness is the essence of depravity, and hence the source 
of all social evil ; and in previous chapters it has been 
shown, argumentatively, that exclusively subjective proc- 
esses of education tend, in a high degree, to promote self- 
ishness. Another fundamental proposition of this work 
is that the useful arts are the true measure of civilization, 
and that, as they are the product of labor, contempt of 
the laborer leads inevitabl}^ to social disintegration and 



248 MANUAL TEAINING. 

the destruction of the State. If these propositions are 
true, the solution of all social problems is to be sought 
through a radical change in educational methods. If 
thej are true, it is of the first importance that they be 
proved, not only bj argument, but by the citation of such 
facts of history as bear upon the subject. Civilization is 
the product of education. If the education is good the 
product will be good, if evil the product will be evil. The 
purpose of this and the four following chapters is, there- 
fore, to trace the progress of civilization, to sketch in bold 
outline the social history of man. 

The aphorism, all men are created equal, is a fine 
phrase, but its truth is reserved for realization by the 
civilization of the future. A tendency to the formation 
of class-distinctions in human society, whether savage or 
civilized, is disclosed by all histor3^ 

The first class-distinction sprang from the physical su- 
periority of one savage over his fellows. He whose power- 
ful frame and commanding eye enabled him best to cope 
with the beasts of field and forest became chief of the 
tribe. He held the first place by virtue of his brawny 
arm, and the less athletic, and more timid, became his 
subjects. But he was not long without rivals. His first 
rival was the dwarf, or hunchback, who, brooding moodily 
over the misfortune of his deformity, in the seclusion of 
his mud hut, invented the stone hatchet and stone-point- 
ed arrow-head. His next rival was the puny, pale-faced 
youth who converted pantomimic signs and rude gest- 
ures into a language of sounds, and so armed communi- 
ties witli the power of combination for mutual protection. 
Those who soonest mastered the first alphabet took high 
rank in the social circle, while those who could still only 
make themselves understood by grimaces and gestures 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEif. 249 

fell to the grade of ciphers in the hody politic, and came 
to be looked upon as dunces in society. Thereafter the 
women, who had previously been won as wives by per- 
sonal prowess, were more equally parcelled out. The 
savage who had invented the bow and the arrow was ex- 
empted from the toils of the chase, and from the general 
contention at the courting season ; a wife was assigned to 
him, and his tent was supplied with game in the hope 
that he would invent some other useful thing. Thus 
mind began to assert its empire over matter, the division 
of labor commenced, and a class-distinction was formed. 
Doubtless the youth who invented language cultivated 
superstition among the ignorant, and so, increasing his al- 
ready considerable influence, secured the first social rank. 
Hence the castes of India and Egypt, consisting, in their 
order, of the priesthood, the army, the mercantile class, 
and, at the bottom of the scale, the servile laborer. 

Of the long period of social progress from a state of 
savagery to the high civilization of historic Egypt the 
record is faint and fragmentary. Ages passed, during 
which men struggled, and died, and left no sign — nei- 
ther hieroglyphic character, monument, nor buried city. 
Through what mental alchemy was the savage chief trans- 
formed, in the course of hundreds of generations, into the 
learned, accomplished, and astute Egyptian priest, from 
whose courtly lips Herodotus received the chronicles of 
the Egyptian kings and the romantic story of the resi- 
dence in Egypt of Helen of Troy F How were the mem- 
bers of the savage tribe converted, one into an obedient 
soldier, another into an adroit, self-seeking merchant, and 



* " Herodotus, 'Euterpe,' " II., pp. 113-116. Xew York: Harper & 
Brothers, 1882. 



250 MANUAL TRAINING. 

another into a cringing slave ? These are secrets of an- 
tiquity, destined, doubtless, to remain forever unrevealed. 
We do know, however, that the civilization of Egypt, 
like all other civilizations, was the product of training or 
education ; and the nature tof the education may be in- 
ferred from the character and fate of the civilization. 

Of the Egyptian system of education selfishness was 
the basis. Given chains and slavery for the lowest class 
and there were force and rapacity in the highest class.* 
Before the free-born savage was reduced to slavery and 
made to toil under the lash, whole hecatombs of lives 
were sacrificed. Before the mind of the savage was de- 
graded to the baseness of slavery, his body, hacked and 
hewn, bent submissively to the scourge. For the Egyp- 
tian boy there was, doubtless, a "Poor Richard's Alma- 
nack," which taught him that he must " look to the main 
chance ;" that " in the race of life the devil takes the 
hindmost ;" and that " self-preservation is the first law of 
nature." Thus trained he entered the ranks of the priest- 
hood, one of his brothers took a commission in the army, 
and the others embarked in mercantile life. For the 
servile class there was no education beyond their sever- 
al occupations. Each man was compelled to follow the 
trade of his father, to marry within his own class, to die 
as he was born. 

Ruled by the priests, and the army, Egypt grew rich. 
Her commerce, conducted by means of caravans, embraced 
the whole civilized world and included all its products. 
She became a great military and naval power, her armies 
overrunning Asia, and her fleets sweeping the Indian 

* "The Martyrdom of Man," p. 18. By Winwood Reade. New 
York : Charles P. Somerby, 1876. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PEOBLEM. 251 

Ocean. Her victorious campaigns opened new markets 
to her commerce, and tlirougli these channels wealth 
poured into the empire. In the track of the wheels of 
the Egyptian war-chariots the Egyptian merchant quick- 
ly followed. At the point of the arrows of her archers 
she oifered her linen goods to conquered peoples, as Eng- 
land, at the point of the bayonet, subsequently offered 
her cotton goods to prostrate India. 

In Egypt all the learning of the time was concentrated. 
It was the university of Greece. Every intellectual Greek 
made a voyage to Egypt ; it was regarded as a part of 
education, as a pilgrimage to the cradle-land of their my- 
thology. The possession of great wealth led to habits 
of luxury. The house of the Egyptian gentleman was a 
palace adorned with the triumphs of art, and devoted to 
pleasure. Its walls, its floors, and its furniture reflected 
the skill, not to say genius, of slaves — for all the manual 
labor of Egypt was performed by slaves. At the end of 
the fashionable dinner, given in the palace by its rich 
master, a mummy, richly painted and gilded, was present- 
ed to each guest in turn by a servant, who said, " Look 
on this ; drink and enjoy thyself, for such as it is now 
so thou shalt be when thou art dead."* 

One day when the priests were sacrificing in the tem- 
ples, and the chief officers of the army were dining with 
a contractor for array supplies, a band of mountaineers 
rushed out of the recesses of Persia and swept like a 
wind across the plains. They were dressed in leather; 
they had never tasted fruit nor wine ; they had never 
seen a market ; they knew not how to buy or sell. They 



* "Herodotus, 'Euterpe,'" II., p. 78. New York: Harper & 
Brothers, 1882. 

11* 



253 MANUAL TRAINING. 

were taught three things — to ride on horseback, to hurl 
the javelin, and to speak the truth.* All Asia was cov- 
ered with blood and flames. The allied kingdoms fell at 
once, and India and Egypt were soon afterwards added 
to the Persian empire. 

' Egypt typifies all the early nations. In its rise, prog- 
ress, and fall, the course of the others may be traced. 
First there is a band of hardy men whose prowess renders 
them irresistible. They are inured to toil ; they practise 
all the manly virtues; they are trained to labor with 
their" hands; they are taught to si3eak the truth. They 
lay the foundations of the State in industry and pru- 
dence ; their children develop its resources ; their chil- 
dren's children, througli many generations, gradually ac- 
cumulate wealth. The arts flourish, and luxuries are mul- 
tiplied. There are many great estates, and those who in- 
herit them cease to labor, and, ceasing to labor, they be- 
come a charge upon the public ; for the value of an estate 
created one hundred years ago, or one year ago, can be 
maintained in no other way than by the labor of to-day.f 
The idlers increase in number, and the struggle for 
existence, of the workers, becomes more intense. Idle- 



* "Herodotus, ' Clio,' " I., pp. 71, 136, 153. New York : Harper & 
Brothers, 1882. 

f "It is not equitable that what one man hath done for the public 
should discharge another of what it has a right to expect from him ; 
for one, standing indebted in himself to society, cannot substitute 
anything in the room of his personal service. The father cannot 
transmit to his sou the right of being useless to his fellow-creatures. 
. . . The man who earns not his subsistence, but eats the bread of 
idleness, is no better than a thief. ... To labor, then, is the indispen- 
sable duty of social or political man. Rich or poor, strong or weak, 
every idle citizen is a knave." — "Emilius and Sophia," Vol. H., 
pp. 92, 93. By J. J. Rousseau. London: 1767. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 253 

ness breeds vice, and the public morals are debauched. 
We see this class at the feast of Belshazzar and at the 
dinner of the Egyptian hon vivant. On the wall of every 
such banqueting room there is an ominous handwriting, 
provided, only, that there is a Daniel to interpret it. It 
means that the nation that degrades labor, tolerates idle- 
ness, and deifies vice, is ripe for annihilation. If, now, 
there is on the frontier of the effete nation a virile people, 
it is only a question of time and opportunity, when they 
will make slaves of the revellers, and spoil of their inher- 
ited estates. The worn-out, exhausted nation disappears 
in blood and flames. The rich idler, the poor sycophant, 
the rulers and the ruled, the slave and his master, the 
priest, the soldier, the merchant, and the laborer, all go to 
destruction together. 

In the ancient nations there was always force and ra- 
pacity above, and chains and slavery below. Education 
was confined to a small class, and consisted of selfish 
maxims for the government of the many, and government 
was only another name for the appropriation of the prod- 
ucts of their labor. Selfishness bred injustice, and the 
practice of injustice undermined the State. Whether the 
State survived or fell was a matter of indiiference to the 
slave. A slave he remained in any event — if not of 
the Egyptian then of the Persian. But the importance 
of labor is shown by those bloody revolutions. The bat- 
tles of antiquity were contests for the possession of the 
labor class. Which nationality — the Egyptian or the 
Persian — should drive the toilers to their daily tasks; 
which should reap the frnit of the sweat of tlieir brows ; 
which should buy and sell them ; which scourge them to 
their dungeons ? These were tlie questions which agitat- 
ed the minds of ancient rulers. They were the questions 



254 MANUAL TRAINING. 

which agitated the mind of Xerxes when he invaded 
Greece, witli millions of followers, to encounter defeat 
at the hands of a few thousand men of a superior type. 

The Greek civilization sprung from mythology and 
ended in anarchy. In the East the Greeks were called 
the people of youth. Their religion was of the savage 
type. Their gods were immortalized men ; they loved 
and hated, transgressed and suffered ; they resorted to 
stratagems to compass their ends ; they were a kind of 
exalted but unscrupulous aristocracy. 

Greek patriotism was narrow ; each city was politically 
independent, and the citizen of one city was an alien and 
a stranger in the territory of every other. The Greeks 
were superstitious. If the omens were unfavorable the 
general refused to give battle; the plague was a visible 
sign of the wrath of the gods ; the priests sacrificed per- 
petually ; the oracle of Apollo outlived Grecian indepen- 
dence hundreds of years. 

Grecian national festivals were childish, consisting of 
wrestling, boxing, running, jumping, and chariot-racing. 
But the victor in those games conferred everlasting glory 
upon his family and his country, and was rewarded with 
distinguished honors. 

Like savages, the Greeks were treacherous. The des- 
tiny of Greece was controlled by renegades. There was 
disloyalty in every camp, a Greek deserter in every op- 
posing army, and a traitor, or a band of traitors, in every 
besieged Greek city. They were cruel ; of their captives 
they butchered the men and enslaved the women, and 
they stripped and robbed the bodies of the slain, on the 
battle-field. Like savages they assassinated ambassadors, 
and like savages surrendered prisoners to their personal 
enemies to be massacred. Their sense of honor was dull. 



EDUCATION" AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 255 

Xenophon, after winning imperishable renown, in con- 
ducting the famous retreat of the " Ten Thousand," led a 
detachment of them on a pillaging expedition, and so 
amassed a fortune. "My patriotism," says Alcibiades, 
"I keep not at a time when I am being wronged." 
"For there was neither promise that could be depended 
on, nor oath that struck them with fear," exclaims Thu- 
cydides.* 

Venality was the predominating trait in Greek charac- 
ter, and venality unrestrained is savagery. In the Greek 
Pantheon the highest niche was reserved for the God of 
Gain. The early Greeks were pirates ; they plundered 
one another ; they sometimes actually sold themselves 
into slavery, so great was their lust of gold. The richest 
cities ruled the poor cities. Pericles boasted that he 
could not be bribed, but he robbed all Greece to embel- 
lish Athens, and was accused of peculation, tried, con- 
victed, and fined. The Athenians declared that the 
Spartans were taught to steal, and the Spartans retorted 
tjiat the best Athenians were invariably thieves. When 
Persia could no longer fight she defended her territory 
against Greek invasion with gold coins. 

The Greek orators never refused a bribe, and oratory 
ruled Greece. Greek oratory was very persuasive. A 
discriminating writer declares that, with their fine phrases 
and rhetorical expressions, the Greek orators swindled his- 
tory, obtaining a vast amount of admiration under false 
pretences. t 

For these defects in Greek character, and for the re- 

* "The History of the Peloponnesian War," Vol. I., p. 210. Lon- 
don: George Bell & Sons. 

f "The Martyrdom of Man," p. 88. By Winwood Reade. New 
York: Charles P. Somerby, 1876. 



256 MANUAL TRAINING. 

suiting decay of Greek civilization, Greek philosophy and 
Greek education must be held responsible. Metaphysics 
and rhetoric ruined Greece. It was in the schools of 
rhetoric that the young Greeks received their training 
for the duties of public life. There they were taught 
the art of oratory; there they learned how to make the 
worse appear the better reason. There they were taught, 
not to expound the truth, but to indulge in the arts of 
sophistry. It was in those schools that the young Greek 
was trained to be eloquent, to win applause in the courts 
of law, not to convince the judgments of judge, or juror ; 
for judicial decisions were notoriously subjects of the 
most shameful traffic. 

The element of rectitude was wholly left out of the 
Greek system of education, and hence wholly wanting in 
Greek character. The Greeks had a profound distrust 
of one another. They were dishonest ; they were treach- 
erous ; they were cruel ; they were false ; and all these 
vices are peculiar to a state of savagery. In ethics they 
never emerged from the savage state, and hence in poli- 
tics their failure was complete ; for the prime condition 
of the most simple form of civil society is mutual confi- 
dence. But the mutual distrust of the Greeks, based on 
want of integrity, was so absolute that political unity was 
impossible, and t]ie failure to combine the several cities 
under one government led, eventually, to the destruction 
of Greek civilization. 

To this result Greek philosophy also contributed. 
Plato's contempt for matter was so profound that he re- 
garded the soul's residence in the body as an evil. He 
taught that the philosopher should emancipate himself 
from the illusions of sense, devoting his life to reflection, 
and surrendering his mind " to communion with its kin- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 257 

dred eternal essences." Contempt of matter led logically 
to contempt of the physical man, and hence to contempt 
of things, the work of man's hands. Such a philosophy 
was necessarily " in the air." It afforded no aid to the 
sciences ; for science is the product of generalizations 
from matter. It scorned art ; for the arts are applications 
of the sciences in useful things. With the Greek school- 
master rhetoric was the chief part of education ; with the 
Greek philosopher dialectics was the science jj)ar emi- 
nence. 

Thus the Greek system of education was confined to 
rhetoric and logic — the art of speaking with propriety, 
elegance, and force, and the power of deducing legiti- 
mate conclusions from assumed premises. In the Greek 
schools of rhetoric there was no struggle to find the 
truth ; in the schools of philosophy there was no respect 
for the evidence of the senses. The Greek orator har- 
angued the jury eloquently while his client bargained 
with the court for the price of justice ! The Greek phi- 
losopher confounded his audience with the force of his 
unanswerable logic, and appealed to his iinier conscious- 
ness in support of the soundness of his premises ! 

The explanation of Greek duplicity is found in Greek 
metaphj^sics. To scorn things is to disregard facts, and 
disregard of facts is contempt of the truth. Greek edu- 
cation was confined to a consideration of the subject of 
the nature and relations of abstract ideas, while the sub- 
ject of the nature and relations of things was wholly neg- 
lected. Such a system of education led logically to 
selfishness, and out of selfishness grew inordinate am- 
bition and greed ; and these passions led, through treach- 
ery and dishonesty, to factional contests, which, eventuat- 
ing in bloodshed, could only end in anarchy. Distracted 



258 MANUAL TRAINING. 

by the jealousies and rivalries of States constantly in hos- 
tile conflict, and enfeebled by the never-ending strife be- 
tween the rich and tlie poor, Greece fell a prey to the 
rapacity, and lust of power, of her unscrupulous Eoman 
neighbor. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 259 



CHAPTER XXII. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

ROME. 

Vigor of the Early Romans — their Virtues and Vices ; their Rigorous 
Laws; their Defective Education; their Contempt of Labor. — Slav- 
ery: its Horrors and Brutalizing Influence. — Education Confined 
to the Arts of Politics and War ; it transformed Courage into 
Cruelty, and Fortitude into Stoicism. — Robbery and Bribery. — The 
Vices of Greece and Carthage imported into Rome. — Slaves con- 
struct all the great Public Works; they Revolt, and the Legions 
Slaughter them. — The Gothic Invasion. — Rome Falls. — False Phi- 
losophy and Superficial Education promoted Selfishness. — Deifica- 
tion of Abstractions, and Scorn of Men and Things.— Universal 
Moral Degradation. — Neglect of Honest Men and Promotion of 
Demagogues. — The Decline of Morals and Growth of Literature. — 
Darwin's Law of Reversion, through Selfishness, to Savagery. — 
Contest between the Rich and the Poor. — Logic, Rhetoric, and 
Ruin. 

In the city of the Seven Hills there was no statue to 
Pity, as at Athens. In the long line of Roman conquer- 
ors there was no one possessing the title to fame, of 
which, on his death -bed, Pericles boasted, namely, that 
" no Athenian had ever worn mourning on his account." 

The dominion of Rome was logical. In the legend of 
Romulus and Remus, suckled by the she-wolf, there is a 
hint of the rugged vigor which characterized the Roman 
people, and distinguished them from the earlier nationali- 
ties. In all the civilizations anterior to that of Rome there 
was an element of pliability or softness which belongs to 
the youth of man. But from the day on which Romulus, 



260 MANUAL TRAINING. 

witli tlie brazen ploughsliare, drew a furrow around the 
Palatine, both the sinews and the souls of his followers 
hardened into maturity. The rising walls of the city, so 
the legend runs, were moistened Avith the life-drops of 
Kemus, whose derisive remark and act cost him his life, 
his slayer exclaiming, haughtily, "So perish all who dare 
to climb these ramparts." The rape of the Sabines, the 
conflicts which ensued with that outraged people, their 
incorporation with the conquerors, their subsequent joint 
conquests, and the shrewdness displayed in the conserva- 
tion of the fruits of victory — these events show that man 
had attained his majority. Under the shadow of the 
walls of the Eternal City all the great races were associ- 
ated and mingled — Latins, Trojans, Greeks, Sabines, and 
Etruscans. The Roman civilization was the product of 
all that had gone before, as it was destined to be the fa- 
ther of all that should follow it. The Roman had no 
peer either in courage or fortitude. Aspiring to uni- 
versal dominion, he toughened himself to achieve it. 
Dooming his enemy to death or slavery, he was not less 
self - exacting, his own life, through the cup of poison, 
the sword, or the opened vein, becoming the forfeit 
equally of misfortune and shame. The tragic fate of 
Lucretia, the resulting revolution, the banishment of the 
Tarquins, and the abolition of the kingly government 
show the swiftness of Roman retribution and the terrible 
force of Roman resolution. Roman persistence in the 
path of conquest for many centuries is typified by Cato in 
his invocation of destruction upon Carthage. The mas- 
culine character of the Roman vices finds illustration in 
the struggle of Appius, the Decemvir, to possess the per- 
son of Yirginia by wresting the law from its true pur- 
pose, the conservation of justice, and converting it into a 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 261 

sMeld for lust ; and tlie vigor of Eoman virtue is exem- 
pKfied in the act of Yirginius plunging the knife into the 
heart of his beloved daughter to save her honor. The 
rigorous laws of Rome testify to the stamina of her peo- 
ple. The father to whom a deformed sou was born must 
cause the child to be put to death, and any citizen might 
kill the man who betrayed the design of becoming king. 
A scientific system of education would have conserved 
and developed the noble and eliminated the ignoble traits 
of Roman character. But neither Roman education, phi- 
losophy, nor ethics inculcated either respect for labor or 
reverence for human rights ; and hence the laborer was 
reduced to slavery, and the slave made the victim of ev- 
ery known atrocity. Slavery became the corner-stone of 
the Roman State, and slavery and labor were synonymous 
terms. The Roman suj^jjly of laborers was maintained 
by depopulating conquered countries. In the train of 
the legions, returning to Rome in triumph, there were 
not only statues, paintings, and other works of art, but 
thousands of men, women, and children destined to slav- 
ery. And the laws in regard to slaves were terrible, as 
laws touching slavery must always be — for a state of 
slavery is a state of war. It was a law of Rome that if 
a slave murdered his master the whole family of slaves 
should be put to death ; and Tacitus relates an instance 
of the execution of four hundred slaves for the murder 
of a citizen, their master. In the course of the servile 
rebellion in Sicily a million slaves were killed; and it 
should be borne in mind that they were valuable labor- 
ers — many of them skilled artisans. Yast numbers of 
them were exposed to wild beasts in the arena, for the 
popular amusement. The rebellion of the gladiators was 
put down only by a resort to awful atrocities, among 



263 MANUAL TRAINING, 

wMcli was the crucifixion of prisoners. The revolt of 
the allies was quelled at the cost of half a million lives. 
But slaves were plenty, for Rome had her bloody hand 
at the throat of all mankind, and her hoarse cry was, 
" Your life or your liberty !" 

Every Roman freeman was a soldier, and the cultiva- 
tion of the land, manufactures, and all the pursuits of in- 
dustry, were carried on by slaves. Slave labor was cheap- 
er than the labor of animals ; cattle were taken from 
the plough and slaughtered for beef that slaves — men — 
might take their places. Labor fell to the lowest degree 
of contempt, and the laborer was a thing to be spurned 
— for the free citizen to labor with his hands was more 
disgraceful than to die of starvation. Hence there was a 
class of citizen paupers to whom largesses of corn were 
doled out by the demagogues of the Senate and the army. 
Ultimately these citizen-paupers became so vile and filthy 
that they engendered leprosy and other loathsome dis- 
eases, as they dragged their palsied limbs through the 
streets of the city, crying, " Bread and circuses I bread 
and circuses !" 

Roman education was confined almost exclusively to 
the training of the sons of rich citizens in the arts of 
politics and war; and in a State where labor was de- 
spised, and whose corner-stone was slavery, and whose 
shibboletli was conquest, the baseness of these arts may 
be imagined but hardly described. It promoted selfish- 
ness, and in the course of centuries selfislmess transform- 
ed Roman courage into cruelty, and Roman fortitude 
into brutal stoicism. The Roman sense of justice was 
swallowed up in Roman lust of power. Rome became 
the great robber nation of the world. She was on the 
land what Greece had once been on the sea — a pirate. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEil. 263 

She made the streets of the cities she conquered run 
with blood. Thousands of captives she doomed to death ; 
other thousands graced the triumphs of her generals, and 
the spoil saved from the fury of the flames, and the more 
ungovernable furj of the licentious soldiery, was carried 
home to the Eternal City, there to fall into the hands of 
the most cunning among the demagogues, for use in the 
bribery of courts, senators, and the populace. 

Tacitus deplored the decline of public virtue. lie de- 
clared, mournfully, that "I^Tothing was sacred, nothing 
safe from the hand of rapacity." His environment blind- 
ed him to the true cause of the depravity he so elo- 
quently deplored — selfishness. Had he been familiar with 
the inductive method he would have found in a defective 
system of education the cause of Roman venality and cor- 
ruption. He might thus have realized the weakness of a 
community of men who wanted the necessary force and 
virtue to depose a Tiberius and elevate to his place a 
Germanicus ; or to dethrone a Domitian and crown in 
his stead an Agricola. 

Education in Rome deified selfishness, and hence real- 
ized its last analysis — total depravity. Of course noth- 
ing was sacred in a community where men were ruth- 
lessly trampled underfoot ! Of course nothing was "safe 
from the hand of rapacity" where the laborer was de- 
graded to a place in the social scale below the leprous 
pauper whose filthy person provoked disgust, and whose 
poisonous breath, as he cried for bread, spread abroad 
disease and death ! 

It was inevitable that the nation that grew rich through 
plunder should grow poor in public and private virtue. 
And such was the fact. The eagles that protected rob- 
bers abroad, spread their sheltering wings over defaulters, 



264 MANUAL TRAINING. 

bribers, and thieves at home. There had been a time in 
Eome when bribery was punishable with death, but now 
candidates for oflSce sat at tables in the streets near the 
polling-places and openly paid the people for their votes. 
The change in the habits of the people was as pronounced 
as the change in the laws. The early triumphs of the 
Romans were industrial — flocks and herds ; their tro- 
phies, obtained in single combat, consisted of spears and 
helmets. When Cincinnatus was sent for to assume 
the dictatorship he was found in his field following the 
plough. Yalerius, four times consul, and by Livy char- 
acterized as the first man of his time, died so poor that 
he had to be buried at the public charge. But with the 
fall of Greece and Carthage, and the reduction of Asia, 
there was a great social change at Home. The Roman 
legions not only carried home the wealth of the coun- 
tries they conquered but the vices of the peoples they 
subdued. An ancient writer summarizes the situation 
in the following graphic sentence : " The only fashiona- 
ble principles were to acquire wealth by every means of 
avarice and injustice, and to dissipate it by every method 
of luxury and j)rofusion." 

The end is not far off. The story of Persia, of Egypt, 
and of Greece is the story equally of Rome. Avarice 
and injustice, luxury and profusion do their sure work. 
The Roman civilization is more than a tliousand years 
old. Asiatic wealtli, the luxury and false philosophy of 
Greece, and a vicious system of education, promoting 
selfishness, have united to sap its foundations. Society 
is divided into three classes— an aristocracy based solely 
upon wealth, cruel and profligate, a mob of free citizens, 
otherwise paupers, who live by beggary and the sale of 
their votes, and laborers who are slaves. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 365 

On the occasion of the presentation of spectacles, 
among a variety of presents slaves (laborers) are thrown 
into the arena to be scrambled for by the free citizens ! 
But men are cheap. In Asia they sell for sixpence 
apiece, and Rome has only to send an army there to get 
them for nothing. To this class, to these slaves, however, 
the Roman people are indebted for all the arts which 
make life agreeable. They construct all the great public 
works. They build the splendid roads over which the 
Roman legions follow their generals in triumph home to 
Rome. They make the aqueducts, dig the canals, and 
construct the buildings, public and private, whose re- 
mains still attest their magnificence — the Forum, the 
amphitheatres, and the golden house of the Caesars. 
They build the villas overlooking the Bay of IS^aples, in 
which the nobles live in riot and wantonness ; they cook 
the dinners given in those villas ; they make the clothes 
the nobles wear, and the jewels that adorn their persons. 
They cultivate the fields, follow the plough, ti-ain and 
trim the vine, and gather in the harvest. They raise the 
corn that is distributed by the nobles among the soldiery, 
and given as a bribe to the diseased and debauched free 
citizens for their votes. They feel deeply the injustice 
of their lot, and, like men, strike for liberty. But the 
Roman legions are set on them like blood-hounds, and 
hundreds of thousands of them are slaughtered and made 
food for birds of prey, and other thousands are thrown 
into the arena to be torn by wild beasts, and still others 
are bestowed as gifts upon the populace at the games. 

The contest between the rich and the j^oor is at an 
end ; the rich are millionaires, the jooor are beggars. It 
is the story of Dives and Lazarus over again. The rich 
are clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuous- 



366 MANUAL TRAINING. 

ly every day ; the poor are full of sores, and live upon 
the crumbs that fall from the tables of the rich. Rome 
topples to her fall. The Gothic invader is at her gates, 
and there is no army to defend them. The barbarian 
demands a ransom. To obtain it the statues are despoiled 
of their ornaments and precious stones, and the gods of 
gold and silver are melted in the fire. The ransom is 
given, and Alaric retires. He returns, and this time to 
pillage. The city is sacked; rich and poor, bond and 
free, are whelmed in one common ruin. At last the 
diabolic wish of the infamous Caligula is realized. The 
Roman people have but one neck, and the Goth puts his 
foot upon it. Rome falls, the victim of her own crimes, 
strangled by her own gluttony. Thus ends the first 
period of the world's manhood — ends in exhaustion, and 
a syncope which is destined to last a thousand years. 

Long before the fall of the republic Rome had become 
the seat of all the world's learnino;. In robbing con- 
quered countries she not only took their gold and silver, 
a share of their people for slaves, and their works of art, 
but their libraries, their philosophy, and their literature. 
But neither the Greek nor the Roman philosophy con- 
tributed in the least to a solution of the pressing social 
problems of the time. The wise men of Rome were 
powerless to help either themselves or their fellow-men, 
because their philosophy was false. It was purely spec- 
ulative ; it had no body of facts to rest upon. 

The Roman educators and philosophers were almost as 
ignorant of physiology as Plato was hundreds of years 
before, hence they were unable to study the mind in the 
sole way in which it is intelligently approachable, name- 
ly, through its bodily manifestations. In studying the 
mind as an independent entity there could be no general 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PEOBLEM. 267 

rules of investigation. The metaphysical philosopher did 
not study the mind of man ; he explored his own mind 
merely — consulted his own inner consciousness. Hence 
there were, in Rome, as many systems of philosophy, 
more or less clearly defined and distinct, as there were 
philosophers. But they were merely metaphysical spec- 
ulations, dreams, dependent upon purely subjective proc- 
esses ; and those processes were in turn dependent upon 
the ever-changing states of mind of each philosopher. 

It is obvious that these systems of philosophy could 
exert no influence upon the community at large, for the 
community formed no part of the subject matter of their 
speculations. But they did exert an influence, and a 
very pernicious one, upon the philosophers themselves, 
and indeed upon all the cultured men of Rome ; for they 
were thereby made thoroughly selfish, and so rendered in- 
capable of forming a just judgment of public affairs. In 
considering the mind apart from the body, the body nat- 
urally fell into utter contempt. This was the great crime 
of speculative philosophy ; for in engendering a feeling 
of contemj)t for the human body it furnished an excuse 
for slavery. And this contempt logically included man- 
ual labor, for the only manual laborer was a slave ; and 
it also extended to the useful arts, for all those arts were 
the work of slaves. Hence the laborer, being a slave, 
was placed lower in the social scale than the pauper who 
sold his vote for a glass of Avine. And thus it came 
about that a factitious right — the right of suffrage — was 
more highly esteemed by the public than the cardinal 
virtue of industry, upon which alone the perpetuity of 
the social compact depends. 

And, again, the wretched state of public morals may be 
inferred from the fact that the riglit of suffrage, through 

12 



268 MANUAL TRAINING. 

wliicli the idle, leprous pauper was elevated above the 
industrious laborer and above the useful arts, was notori- 
ously the subject of open traffic in the streets of Rome 
on every election day. Thus Roman philosophy landed 
the Roman people in the last ditch, for it led to the dei- 
fication of abstract ideas and to scorn of things. That 
this utter perversion of the tratli and wreck of justice 
was the cause of the decline of the Roman Empire there 
is no doubt. 

It is equally plain that the noted men of Rome were 
utterly ignorant of the cause of the disorders which af- 
flicted the body politic. There is no evidence, either in 
their lives or their works, that they brought to the con- 
sideration of the great social problems of the time any 
practical philosophy whatever. Suetonius, with a graphic 
pen, portrays the cruelties of the Csesars, but hints at 
no cause therefor inherent in the social system. Cicero 
forecasts the doom of the republic, but has no remedy 
to propose except that of the elevation of Pompey rather 
than Csesar. Livy and Tacitus deplore the decay of 
public and private virtue, but are silent on the subject 
of the infamy of slavery and on the shame of degrading 
labor. The moral sentiments of Seneca and Aurelius 
are of the most elevated character, but the fact that they 
ignore slavery, the slave, the laborer, and the useful arts, 
shows either that they never thought upon those funda- 
mental social questions, or that their thoughts ran in the 
popular channel ; in a word, that their philosojihy was 
so shallow as to render them callous to the great crimes 
upon which the Roman State rested. 

That the subjective philosophy and the defective edu- 
cational system of the Romans rendered them selfish, 
and hence corrupt, there is abundant evidence. Cicero 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PEOBLEM. 269 

professed the most lofty patriotism, but lie was without 
moral courage. It was he who congratulated the public 
men of Rome, after the usurpation of Caesar, upon the 
privilege of remaining " totally silent !" He regarded 
Pompey as " the greatest man the world had ever pro- 
duced," but deserted him in his extremity, which was 
equally the extremity of his country. He denounced 
Csesar as the cause of the culminating misfortunes of 
Rome, but went down upon his knees to him, and rose 
to his feet only to exhaust all the resources of his match- 
less eloquence in fulsome adulation of the destroyer of 
the Republic. 

Seneca's moral precepts are sublime, but his political 
maxims are atrocious. Witness this pretence of an all- 
embracing love for man — " Whenever thou seest a fel- 
low-creature in distress know that thou seest a human 
being." Contrast with this exalted sentiment of the 
great stoic his political maxim — ■ " Terror is the safe- 
guard of a kingdom" — and reflect that he lived under 
the reigns of Claudius and ISTero. The millions of slaves 
in the Roman dominions were "human beings," but 
Seneca had no practical regard for them as "fellow- 
creatures in distress." His beautiful humanitarian sen- 
timent Avas a barren ideality — it bore no fruit ; but his 
brutal political maxim caused him to thrive. Under the 
favor of Claudius Seneca amassed a vast fortune. His 
palace in the city was sumptuously furnished, his coun- 
try-seats were splendidly ajDpointed, and he possessed 
abundance of ready money. " There can be no happiness 
without virtue," exclaims this prosperous Roman citizen. 
But while Seneca pens this lofty sentiment he is accused 
of avarice, usury, and extortion, charged with complicity in 
thePiso conspiracy, and banished for the crime of adultery. 



270 • MANUAL TKAINING. 

The debasing influence of the Greek philosophy, upon 
the Roman people, is shown by contrasting the charac- 
ters of the distinguished men who were honored by the 
public at widely separated periods of time. Thus, dur- 
ing the period 400-350 B.C., Camillus, noted above all 
his contemporaries for the purity of his public life, was 
uninterruptedly honored with the highest offices in the 
State, and loved and respected by all classes of the com- 
munity. But three hundred years later Cgesar, who in- 
volved the country in civil war to compass his ambition, 
and in which struggle liberty perished — he was pre- 
ferred, in all the political struggles preliminary to his as- 
sumption of supreme power, to Cato, whose patriotism 
was unquestioned, and whose rigid virtue was prover- 
bial throughout the Koman Empire. So also of a still 
later period, Agricola and Germanicus were renowned for 
the possession of the highest qualities of true manhood, 
joined to the practice in public life of the most austere 
and self-sacrificing virtue. Both served the State with 
courage, ability, and zeal; but the one, after a brilliant 
career in the West, was forced into retirement, and the 
other, after splendid services in the East, was exiled and 
poisoned. 

Previous to the introduction of the Greek philoso- 
phy, and the Greek education and social habits, the Ro- 
man people were worthy of their noblest representative 
— Camillus. At that early period of their history they 
rewarded virtue and punished vice. But during the Em- 
pire, after the invasion of Greek manners, they were 
unworthy of their best representatives — Cato, Germani- 
cus, and Agrieola. To those great and good men they 
preferred Csesar, Caligula, and ISTero : they rewarded vice 
and punished virtue. There is in this circumstance un- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 271 

questionable evidence of a great declension in character. 
But the remarkable fact in regard to this period of Ro- 
man history is that the declension in character was ac- 
companied by a species of great mental growth or power. 

During this period a literature was created which has 
ever since been famous, and which still exerts a consid- 
erable influence upon man. Csesar's Commentaries, the 
Orations of Cicero, the Annals of Tacitus, Livy's History, 
the Odes and Satires of Horace, the Meditations of Au- 
relius, and the Morals of Seneca are in all the world's 
libraries, and, in the universities, are placed in the hands 
of the most favored youth of all the civilized countries 
of the world, as models of style and exponents of a civ- 
ilization whence all modern civilizations sprung. But 
this literature possessed no saving quality, because in so 
far as it was elevated in morals it did not represent the 
Roman people, not even the authors themselves general- 
ly, as has been shown. As a matter of fact, during the 
jDcriod of the creation of the great literature of Rome, 
Darwin's law of "reversion" was in active operation. 
There was a " black sheep " in every noble Roman fami- 
ly. Bad men appeared, not now and then, at long inter- 
vals, as in all civilizations, but every day and everywhere ; 
and these men were political and social leaders. They 
moulded the policy of the State and set the fashion in 
society. Under their direction the Roman people retro- 
graded towards a state of savagery, and savagery is but 
another name for selfishness. Selfishness in its worst 
estate is the essence of human depravity, and to that con- 
dition the Roman people fell, at the time when their mor- 
alists were inditing those sublime sentiments which still 
challenge the admiration of all great and good men. 

That the Roman people were as dead to the influence 



273 MANUAL TRAINING. 

of high moral sentiments as the Britons were when first 
encountered by C^sar, shows that they had degener- 
ated to a similar condition of savagery, or to a condi- 
tion of absolute selfishness, which is its moral equivalent. 
Given a savage state, two savages and one dinner ; the 
savages will fight to tlie death for the dinner. Given a 
state of civilization absolutely selfish, two contestants and 
one prize ; each contestant will exhaust all the resources 
of artifice, duplicity, and falsehood to secure the prize. 
To this deplorable condition the Roman people were re- 
duced by subjective educational processes. Selfislmess 
causes the individual to seek his own interest in total dis- 
regard of the interest of others. Hence it tends directly 
to the disintegration of society, since the essence of the 
civil compact is the pledge of each member of the com- 
munity that he will do no injury to his fellows. Selfish- 
ness violates this pledge ; for to gain its end it ruthlessly 
crushes whatever appears in its path. 

In Home selfishness did its complete work. It trans- 
formed the government from a pure democracy into an 
oligarchy composed of wealthy citizens, who called them- 
selves nobles. By this class wealth was made the sole 
standard of social and political distinction, and in its 
presence, and through its influence, the old strife between 
the patricians and the plebeians gave way to a state of 
hostility between the rich and the poor — always the last 
analysis of social disorder. The contest was distinguished 
by assassinations, embezzlements of the public money, 
the quarrels of rival demagogues, and civil wars, and it 
culminated in Csesar and the empire. 

The nobles, or aristocrats, who wrought tlie work of 
transformation, were refined and elegant in their man- 
ners, and accomplished in the tricks of finance, the tech- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 273 

nicalities of the law, and tlie arts of oratory. They were 
the product of the Koman schools of rhetoric and logic, 
whose subjective methods obscured the truth, promoted 
vanity, and deified selfishness. All the guards of honor 
and rectitude having been swept away by Csesar, a savage 
contest for supremacy ensued among the aristocrats. The 
prize for which they contended consisted of the spoil of 
tlie Eoman legions and the product of the labor of the 
Eoman slaves. This was the Eoman patrimony — the 
price of blood and of the sweat of enforced toil. For 
this prize the Eoman aristocrats struggled like savages 
fighting for the one dinner. 

It is the old struggle, the struggle witnessed by each, 
in turn, of the nations of antiquity — the struggle in which 
selfishness vanquishes itself. But this is a struggle of 
giants, is on a grander scale, and is more conspicuous, 
for the historian, pen in hand, records its bloody scenes. 
It is the last act in a great drama, a drama that has lasted 
a thousand years. It is the conclusion of the long strug- 
gle of a few large-brained, unscrupulous individuals, to 
grasp the fruits of the toil of all men. The conspirators 
are about to fail, as such consjDiracies have always failed 
and must always fail, and like Samson in his blind fury 
they will pull down upon their own devoted heads the 
pillars of the temple. The struggle culminates in a hand- 
to-hand conflict for the mastery between the baflled chiefs 
of the conspiracy to enslave mankind — the supreme ef- 
fort of selfishness — and it involves the authors and their 
victims in one common disaster. Once more it is proven 
that a false system of education, a system which exalts 
abstract ideas and degrades things, promotes selfishness ; 
that selfishness is the equivalent of savagery, and that 
savagery, however refined, wrecks society. 



274 MANUAL TRAINING. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

TEE MIDDLE AGES. 

The Trinity upon which Civilization Rests : Justice, the Arts, and 
Labor; and these Depend upon Scientific Education. — Reason of 
the Failure of Theodoric and Charlemagne to Reconstruct the 
Pagan Civilization. — Contempt of Man. — Serfdom. — The Vices of 
the Time : False Philosophy, an Odious Social Caste, and Ignc 
ranee. — The Splendid Career of the Moors in Spain, in Contrast.- 
Effect upon Spain of the Expulsion of the Moors. — The Repressive 
Force of Authority and the Atrocious Philosophy of Contempt of 
Man. — The Rule of Italy — a Menace and a Sneer. — The work of 
Regeneration. — The Crusades. — The Destruction of Feudalism.— 
The Invention of Printing. — The Discovery of America. — Investi- 
gation. — Discoveries in Science and Art. 

Civilization languishes in an atmosphere of injustice, 
and if the injustice is gross, as slavery, for example, and 
long continued, the State perishes in the social convul- 
sion which ensues. Thus perished tlie nations of an- 
tiquity. Civilization depends upon the useful arts ; in 
them it had its origin, and with them it advances. The 
savage, in his most primitive state, is ignorant of all the 
arts ; the most highly civilized man is familiar with, and 
under obligations to, all of them. The useful arts de- 
pend upon labor. If the laborer is degraded, the use- 
ful arts decline, as he sinks, in the social scale ; if he is 
honored, they advance, as he rises. The trinity upon 
which civilization rests is, therefore, justice, the useful 
arts, and labor ; and this trinity of saving forces depends 
in turn upon the scientific education of man. Rome 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEil. 275 

held all these things in contempt, and Rome perished. 
Anarchy ensued, and, from a state of governmental cha- 
os, the feudal system was evolved. A brief analysis 
of the history of the mediaeval period will show that 
education was unscientific, and consequently that jus- 
tice was scorned, the useful arts neglected, and labor 
despised. 

Theodoric strove to stem the tide of demoralization 
which succeeded the overthrow of the pagans in Italy. 
He was a semi-barbarian, but a man of genius, and ten 
years of his youth, spent at Constantinople, taught him 
the value of civilization. Under his reign there was 
a restoration of the common industries, work on inter- 
nal improvements was resumed, and there was a reviv- 
al of polite literature and the fine arts. But there was 
no general prosperity because there was no general sys- 
tem of education. Polite literature must rest upon a 
basis of general culture, or it is valueless to the country 
in which it flourishes. So of the fine arts ; they can ex- 
ist legitimately only as the natural outgrowth and em- 
bellishment of the useful arts.* In the due order of de- 
velopment the useful precede the fine arts. Theodoric 
began the reconstruction of the exhausted Roman civili- 
zation from the toi?, and his work was a complete failure, 

* "But it is one thing to admit that aesthetic culture is in a high 
degree conducive to human happiness, and another thing to admit 
that it is a fundamental requisite to human happiness. However 
important it may be, it must yield precedence to those kinds of cult- 
ure which bear more directly upon the duties of life. As before 
hinted, literature and the fine arts are made possible by those activi- 
ties which make individual and social life possible; and manifestly 
that which is made possible must be postponed to that which makes 
it possible." — "Education," p. 72. By Herbert Spencer. New York: 
D. Appleton&Co.,1883. 

12* 



276 MANUAL TRAINING. 

of course, because it had no foundation. It was like the 
Greek and Eoman philosophy, it had no basis of things 
to rest upon. Hence the order evoked from chaos by 
the great Ostrogoth to chaos soon returned. 

Charlemagne also attempted to reconstruct a worn-out 
civilization through the revival of polite literature and 
the fine arts. He assembled at his court distinguished 
liUerateuTS from all parts of the world, with the view 
of reviving classical learning. He established a normal 
school called " The Palatine," whence classically trained 
teachers were sent into the provinces. He constructed 
gorgeous palaces, some of which were ornamented with 
columns and sculptural fragments, the spoil of the earlier 
architectural triumphs of Ital3^ But he did not found 
schools for the education of the common people. The 
common people were serfs. The theory of Plato still 
prevailed, namely, that the majority is always dull, and 
always wrong ; that wisdom and virtue reside in the 
minority. In pursuance of this theory, which happens, 
curiously enough, to inure to the exclusive benefit of its 
inventors and supporters, education was confined to a 
small class. The training of the masses was wholly neg- 
lected, and they were poor, ignorant, and brutal. The 
state of mediaeval society is graphically summarized by a 
modern historian : 

" In the castle sits the baron, with his children on his 
lap, and his wife leaning on his shoulder; the troubadour 
sings, and the page and the demoiselle exchange a glance 
of love. The castle is the home of music and chivalry 
and family affection ; the convent is the home of relig- 
ion and of art. But the people cower in their wooden 
huts, half starved, half frozen, and wolves sniff at them 
through the chinks in the walls. The convent prays and 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PEOBLEM. 277 

the castle sings ; the cottage hungers and groans and 
dies."'^^ 

Enterprise 'wsis the shave of superstition and ignorance. 
Some monks in Germany desired to erect a corn -mill, 
but a neighboring lord objected, declaring that the wind 
belonged to him. The useful arts were unknown and un- 
studied except by the monks, and their practice of them 
was confined chiefly to fashioning utensils for the use 
of the altar. Mankind lay in a state of intellectual and 
moral paralysis. Feudalism emasculated human energy. 
One art only flourished — the art of war. The pursuit of 
any of the useful arts, beyond that of agriculture, by the 
serfs, was impracticable, since sufiicient time could not be 
spared ivom. feudal strife for the proper tillage of the 
soil. The vassal was always subject to summary call to 
arms. If in the spring the noble wished to fight, the 
fields remained unplanted ; if he wished to fight in the 
fall, the harvest remained ungathered. The serf, there- 
fore, led a precarious life. If he escaped death in battle, 
he was still quite likely to die of starvation. In the fer- 
tile plains of Lombardy, in the first half of the thirteenth 
century, there were five famines ! 

J^Tothing happens without due cause. The misfort-' 
unes suffered by the people of Europe during the Mid- 
dle Ages did not fall uj^on them from the clouds. The 
moral darkness wliich veiled the face of justice, and the 
intellectual stupor which prevented scientific and art 
researches, are not inexjjlicable mysteries. The vices, 
the cruelties, the poverty, and the jjitiable supersti- 
tions of that time were the product of a false phi- 



* "The Martyrdom of Man." By Winwood Reade. New York : 
Charles P. Somerby, 1876. 



278 MANUAL TRAINING. 

losopliy, an odious social caste, and a state of general 
ignorance. 

It happens tliat for hundreds of years of this period 
of wretchedness and ci'ime there was in the heart of 
Europe an industrious, cultured, prosperous, and happy 
people. Their religion forbade the taking of usurious 
interest under terrible moral penalties ; it also forbade 
" all distinctions of caste," and enjoined full social equal- 
ity. They were the friends of education. " To every 
mosque was attached a public school, in which the chil- 
dren of the poor were taught to read and write." They 
established libraries in their chief cities, and were the 
patrons of the sciences and of the useful arts in all their 
forms. In a word, to the general prevalence of super- 
stition and ignorance in Europe the Moors in Spain con- 
stituted a glowing exception. 

Wherever the Saracen went he carried science and art. 
He honored labor, and genius and learning followed in 
his footsteps. Taught by learned Jews, he studied the 
works of the ancient philosophers, and preserved and ex- 
tended their knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, alge- 
bra, and geography. Cordova was the abode of wealth, 
learning, refinement, and the arts. Its mosques and pal- 
aces were models of architectural splendor, and its indus- 
tries employed 200,000 families. Seville contained 16,000 
silk-looms, and employed 130,000 weavers. The banks 
of the Guadalquivir were thickly studded with those 
gems of free labor, manufacturing villages. The dyeing 
of silk and wool fabrics was carried to great perfection, 
and the Moorish metal-workers were the most expert 
of the time. The Saracen invented cotton paper, intro- 
duced into Spain cotton and leather manufactures, and 
promoted the cultivation of sugar-cane, rice, and the mul- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 279 

berry, l^or did lie neglect agriculture in any of its 
branches ; lie created a new era in husbandry. His king- 
dom in SjDain was the richest and most prosperous in the 
Western world ; indeed, its prosperity was in striking 
contrast with the poverty and misery of the peoples by 
whom it was surrounded. Under the third caliph its 
revenue reached £6,000,000 sterling, a sum, as Gibbon 
remarks, which in the tenth century probably surpassed 
the united revenues of all the Christian monarchs. But 
these industrious, cultured people were the descendants 
of invaders, and the Spaniards, under the influence of a 
blind and unreasoning impulse of religious and patriotic 
zeal, drove them from the soil they had literally made to 
" blossom like the rose," and themselves relapsed into a 
state of indolence, ignorance, and poverty. 

From the effects of the persecution of a race of artif- 
icers, and the proscription of the useful arts, Spain has 
never recovered. She has since always been, and is to- 
day, a striking exemplification of the verity of the prop- 
osition that stagnation in the useful arts is the death of 
civilization. In the last half of the seventeenth century 
the people of Madrid were threatened with starvation. 
To avert the impending calamity the adjacent country 
was scoured by the military, and the inhabitants com- 
pelled to yield supplies. There was danger that the 
Eoyal family would go hungry to bed. The tax-gath- 
erer sold houses and furniture, and the inhabitants were 
forced to fly ; the fields were left uncultivated, and mul- 
titudes died from want and exposure. During the sev- 
enteenth century Madrid lost half its poj^ulation ; the 
looms of Seville were silenced ; the woollen manufact- 
ures of Toledo were transferred by the exiled Moriscoes 
to Tunis ; Castile, Segovia, and Burgos lost their manu- 



280 MANUAL TKAINING. 

factures, and their inliabitants were reduced to poverty 
and despair.* 

Two leading causes contributed to reduce the people 
of Europe during the Middle Ages to a state of moral 
obliquity, intellectual torpor, and physical incapacity — 
the repressive force of authority and the atrocious phi- 
losophy of contempt of man formulated by Machiavelli. 
The one forbade scientific investigation, the other stran- 
gled the spirit of invention in the grip of enforced igno- 
rance. Authority chilled courage, and contempt withered 
hoj)e. Italy governed the world, and her rule consisted 
of a menace and a sneer. Under this regime of cruelty 
and cynicism man shrunk into a state of moral cowardios 
and intellectual lethargy. 

The political maxims which bear the name of Machia- 
velli were not invented by him. When he formulated 
them, in 1513, they had been in force in Italy a thousand 
years. These maxims explain the fact of the existence 
of a period of the world's history known as " the Dark 
Ao^es." The chief of them divides the human race into 
three classes, the members of the first of which under- 
stand things by their own natural powers ; the second 
when they are explained to them ; the third not at all. 
The third class embraces a vast majority of men ; the 
second only a small number ; the first a very small num- 
ber. The first class is to rule both the other classes, the 
second by craft and duplicity, the third by authority, 
and, that failing, by force. Other maxims assume the 
despicable character of all men, and justify falsehood, 

* "The Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. 11., Chap. II. 
By John William Draper, M.D., LL.D. New York: Harper & 
Brothers; "History of Civilization in England," Vol. II., Chap. I. 
By Henry Thomas Buckle. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1864. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEiT. 281 

duplicity, cruelty, and murder, in the ruling class. A 
single proposition sbows the infamy of the whole system, 
namel}^, " There are three ways of deciding any contest 
— by fraud, by force, or by law, and a wise man will 
make the most suitable choice."* These are maxims not 
of civilization but of barbarism. They involve a state 
of slavery, and where slavery exists the useful arts de- 
cline, and ultimately perish. And so it was in the Mid- 
dle Ages. 

Several great events led to the emancipation of the 
people of Europe from the joint reign of authority and 
contempt. The learning of the J^ws and Saracens — 
their knowledge of the arts and sciences — gradually 
spread, and occupied the minds of cloistered students, 
giving to them an intellectual impulse. The Crusades, 
pitiful and prolific of horrors as they were, shed a great 
light upon Europe. They brought the men of the West 
face to face with a practical progressive civilization — a 
civilization that "filled the earth with j)rodigies of hu- 
man skill." The Crusaders were told that they would 
be led against hordes of barbarians. What astonishment 
must have seized them when they stood under the walls 
of Constantinople and beheld its splendors ! ISTor was 
their surprise less, doubtless, in the character of the foe 
they encountered. They had expected to meet with 
treachery and cruelty ; they found chivalry, courtesy, 
and high culture.f 

These surprises and contrasts profoundly impressed 
the Crusaders, and they returned to Euroj)e relieved of 

* " The Prince," Chap. XVIII. By Niccolo Machiavelli. 

f "The Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. II., pp. 135, 
136. By John William Draper, M.D., LL.D. New York: Harper 
& Brothers. 



382 MANUAL TRAINING. 

many illusions, and notably of the fallacy that the wealth 
of Eastern princes was destined to supply the waste of 
their own squandered estates. They returned, too, to 
find a new civilization in process of development. Two 
hundred years of comparative freedom from the repres- 
sive force of feudalism changed the face of the country 
and the character of its people. During the absence of 
the nobles, in the Holy Land, a middle class sprung into 
existence, possessing the qualities which always distin- 
guish that class — thrift and prudence. The mortgaged 
estates of the Crusaders had fallen partly into their 
hands, and partly into the hands of the Crown, Towns 
had sprung up, and a commercial class and a manufact- 
uring class had been formed. The artisan became a fac- 
tor in the social problem. He offered his wares to the 
lords and ladies of the castles, and they bought them- 
selves poor. As Emerson says, " The banker with his 
seven per cent, drove the earl out of his castle." In the 
eleventh century nobility was above price, in the thir- 
teenth it was for sale, and soon afterwards it was offered 
as a gift. 

The invention of printing, the art preservative of all 
arts, removed the seal from the lij)s of learning. The 
desire to conceal is no match for the desire to print. 
Thenceforth, through the medium of types, the voice of 
genius was destined to reach to the ends of the earth ; 
and, more important still, every discovery in science, and 
every invention in art, became the sure heritage of future 
ages. 

The discovery of America was the crowning act of 
man's emancipation. In sweeping away the last vestige 
of the theory on which patristic geography was based, 
Columbus freed mankind. In the cry of " land ho !" 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 283 

witli which he greeted the new continent, he sounded 
the death-knell of intellectual slavery. His was the last 
act in a series of acts which struck off the shackles of 
thought, and let in upon the long night of the Middle 
Ages the clear light of day. Leonardo da Yinci took up 
the interrupted work of Archimedes, and the science of 
mechanics made rapid progress. At last it was correctly 
observed that " experiment is the only interpreter of nat- 
ure," and the development of natural philosophy began. 
Bruno was still to be burned, and Galileo imprisoned. 
But the persecutors of those great men were no longer 
moved by mere blind zeal. They believed and trembled, 
and in seeking to drown the truth in the blood of the 
votaries of science, they rendered it more conspicuous. 
By the light of the flames which consumed the body of 
the too daring philosopher a thousand scientists studied 
the stars, the earth, and the air. 

The invention of printing paralyzed authority, and the 
discovery of America gave wings to hope. A few manu- 
scripts could be locked in vaults or burned, but millions 
of books must inevitably, ultimately, find their way to 
the people. Books were, therefore, the sure promise of 
universal culture — the precursor of the common school. 
The discovery of another continent startled the people of 
Europe from the deep sleep of a thousand years, and sent 
a fresh current of blood surging through their veins. It 
seemed like a sort of new creation, and appealed power- 
fully to the imagination. And it is always the imagina- 
tion that " blazes " the path to glorious achievements. It 
is through the imagination that men are moved to "crave 
after the unseen," and through the imagination that the 
human mind becomes big with " bold and lofty concep- 
tions." A new world having been discovered by one man, 



384 MANUAL TRAINING. 

it was natural that all men should be put upon inquiry. 
Hence the era of investigation, the resulting discoveries 
of science, and their innumerable applications, through 
the useful arts, to the fast multiplying needs of man. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PEOBLEM. 285 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
EDUCATION" AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

EUROPE. 

The Standing Army a Legacy of Evil from the Middle Ages. — It is 
the Controlling Feature of the European Situation. — Its Collateral 
Evils: Wars and Debts. — The Debts of Europe Represent a Series 
of Colossal Crimes against the People ; with the Armies and Na- 
vies they Absorb the Bulk of the Annual Revenue. — The People 
Fleeing from them. — They Threaten Bankruptcy ; they Prevent 
Education. — Germany, the best-educated Nation in Europe, losing 
most by Emigration. — Her People will not Endure the Standing 
Army. — The Folly of the European International Policy of Hate. 
— It is Possible for Europe to Restore to Productive Employ- 
ments 3,000,000 of men, to place at the Disposal of her Educators 
$100,000,000, instead of $70,000,000 per annum, and to pay her 
National Debts in Fifty-four Years, simply by the Disbandment 
of her Armies and Navies. — The Armament of Europe Stands in 
the Way of Universal Education and of Universal Industrial Pros- 
perity. — Standing Armies the Last Analysis of Selfishness ; they 
are Coeval with the Revival during the Middle Ages of the Greco- 
Roman Subjective Methods of Education. — They must go out 
when the New Education comes in. 

The mediaeval period conferred upon man two great 
blessings — a new continent and the art of printing. It 
also left a legacy of evil. With the partition of Europe 
into great States the modern age began, and it began 
with this inheritance of evil from the Middle Ages — the 
standing army. 

The feudal lords wrecked their estates and sacrificed 
their lives during the Crusades, and a middle class arose 
and united with the kings in the government of the 



286 MANUAL TRAINING. 

State. But tliis alliance was of short duration ; it soon 
gave way to an alliance whicli proved to be enduring — 
an alliance between the aristocracy and the kings. 

By the ruin of feudalism thousands of serfs were set 
free. Trained to arms, it was easy to make soldiers of 
them. They were accordingly converted into merce- 
nary troops — mustered into the service of the new alli- 
ance as guards of the modern State. Thus the standing 
armies of the " great powers " originated. This legacy 
of evil has so increased in magnitude that it is, to-day, 
the dominant feature of European public economy, and 
the portentous fact of the social problem. 

The standing armies of Europe number two million five 
hundred thousand men, and their naval auxiliaries con- 
sist of three thousand vessels, thirty thousand guns, and 
two hundred thousand men. This is the mammoth evil 
bequeathed to Europe by the Middle Ages, and out of 
it many collateral evils have sprung, as wars, debts, and 
exorbitant tax levies. 

Thirty years ago the national debts of the govern- 
ments of Europe had risen to $9,000,000,000. Since that 
time they have doubled ! The cause of this vast increase 
is easy to find. It consists chiefiy of four great wars, 
namely, the Crimean war of 1854-56, the Franco-Sar- 
dinian war against Austria in 1859, the German-Italian 
war of 1866, and the Franco-Prussian war of 18Y0-72. 
These wars were waged to maintain what is termed the 
balance of power ; they involved no principle affecting 
the riglits of man. Whatever their issue, no gain could 
hence accrue to the people of Europe. And this is the 
nature of most of the wars in which the standing armies 
of Europe have been employed since their organization. 
But the European budget shows that they are the over- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PEOBLElf. 287 

shadowing feature of the European governmental sys- 
tems. 

The annual revenue of the States of Europe is about 
$1,725,000,000. Of this sum $700,000,000 is devoted to 
the support of the standing armies and navies, and as 
much more is required to meet the interest charge on 
the debts created in the prosecution of wars waged to 
maintain the balance of power! Thus, of the aggregate 
of European revenue, the sum of $1,400,000,000 is de- 
voted to the purely supposititious theory that the sub- 
jects of the great powers are inflamed with an intense 
desire to cut one another's throats, while the small sum 
of $325,000,000 is left for the support of the civil serv- 
ice, comprising all the strictly legitimate objects of gov- 
ernment, and including education ! 

The national debts of Europe represent a series of 
colossal crimes against the people. They were incurred 
in the prosecution of unnecessary wars, and for the sup- 
port of unnecessary standing armies. With relation to 
these debts the people are divided into two classes — one 
class owns them and the other class pays interest on 
them. This relationship comprehends future generations 
in perpetuity. Every child born in Europe inherits 
either an estate in these debts or an obligation to con- 
tribute towards the payment of the interest uj)on them. 
Thus the fruits of a great crime have been transmuted 
into a vested right in one class of peoj)le, and into a 
vested wrong in another class." 

* "For instance, I have seven thousand pounds in •what we call 
the Funds or Founded things; but I am not comfortable about the 
founding of them. All that I can see of them is a square bit of 
paper, with some ugly printing on it, and all that I know of them is 
that this bit of paper gives me the right to tax you every year, and 



288 MANUAL TRAINING. 

If the European standing armies and navies had not 
been raised and kept uj), and if the revenue devoted to 
their sup23ort had been expended for schools, there would 
not now be an uneducated person in Europe, If these 
standing armies and navies were now disbanded, and the 
revenue at present expended for their support diverted 
to the support of schools, and so applied continuously 
for half a century, there would not be, at the end of that 
period, an illiterate person in Europe. 

Under existing conditions the debts of the European 
nations cannot be paid. But vast as the sum of them is, 
their payment is not only possible, but practicable in a 
very short time. Disband the standing armies and navies, 
and continue the present rate of taxation, and there would 
be an annual surplus revenue of $700,000,000. Apply 
this sum, together with the surplus of the interest appro- 
priation, accruing through the resulting yearly decrease 
of the interest charge, to the liquidation of these debts, 
and they would be extinguished in about twenty years. 
But if the period during which provision is made for 
the extinguishment of these debts be extended to fifty- 
four years, and, meantime, the present rate of taxation be 
maintained, there would be released and rendered avail- 
make you pay me two hundred pounds out of your wages; whicli is 
very pleasant for me ; but how long will you be pleased to do so ? 
Suppose it should occur to you, any summer's day, that you had bet- 
ter not ? Where would my seven thousand pounds be ? In fact, 
where are they now ? We call ourselves a rich people ; but you see 
this seven thousand pounds of mine has no real existence — it only 
means that you, the workers, are poorer by two hundred pounds a 
year than you would be if I hadn't got it. And this is surely a very 
odd kind of money for a country to boast of." — " Fors Clavigera," 
Part I., p. 67. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John AViley 
& Sons, 1880. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 289 

able for educational purposes, annually, the sum of 
$600,000,000. 

What is the purpose, it may be inquired, of these cal- 
culations? Their purpose is to show what the armies 
and navies of Europe cost, and what they stand in the 
way of. They cost so much that not a dollar of the 
national debts of Europe can be paid while they con- 
tinue to exist. They cost so much that the people who 
are taxed to support them are fleeing from them as from 
a scourge. They cost so much that the decline of the 
nations which support them has already begun, and this 
decline can be arrested only by their disbandment. 

That the nations of Europe are declining is shown by 
the statistics of emigration. The foundation of national 
prosperity is manual labor. There must be a solid basis 
of industrial growth for tlie superstructure of elegance, 
refinement, luxury, and culture. Manual labor is as es- 
sential to triumphs in literature, music, and the fine arts 
as the foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge, buried in the 
earth, are to the beautiful arch which spans the great 
river. And in the strife for supremacy between the 
nations of the world the maintenance of these trium]3hs 
depends, also, upon manual labor.* The real flower of a 

"" " Now, therefore, see briefly what it all comes to. First, you 
spend eighty millions of money in fireworks [war], doing no end of 
damage in letting them off. 

" Then you borrow money to pay the firework-maker's bill, from 
any gain-loviog persons who have got it. 

"And then, dressing your bailiff's men in new red coats and cocked 
hats, you send them drumming and trumpeting into the fields, to 
take the peasants by the throat, and make them pay the interest on 
what you have borrowed, and the expense of the cocked hats besides. 

"That is 'financiering,' my friends, as the mob of the monej''- 
makers understand it. And they understand it well. For that is 



390 MANUAL TKAINING. 

population is, therefore, its labor class. All other classes 
depend upon it, and all national triumphs spring from it. 
Hence a drain upon the labor class of a nation is a drain 
upon its most vital resource. The nation that suffers 
such a drain continuously is in its decadence. It loses 
some of its vigor, some of its productive power, and the 
loss is not supplied. True, the poor emigrant takes with 
him no part of the splendors of the country he leaves, 
but his brawny arm and skilled hand have contributed to 
the support of national pomp and social elegance, and as 
he steps aboard the steamer he withdraws that support 
forever. 

Napoleon the Infamous plundered the conquered cap- 
itals of Europe to beautify and enrich tlie art treasuries 
of Paris. The art treasures of Europe are destined to 
cross the ocean, in the track of the column of emigration, 
if the flower of her labor class continues to flee from her 
standing armies and navies, as the statues of Home fol- 
lowed t]ie army of the modern Caesar. For where the 
flower of the world's labor class gathers, there wealth 
most abounds. Labor, not gold and silver, not land, is 
the source of wealth, hence it is to the laborer that art 
triumphs are due, and this is the order of their devel- 
opment. The laborer provides for immediate, pressing 
wants; he is prudent, and accumulates a surplus; he 
hungers for education ; he develops a love of the beauti- 

what it always comes to, finally — taking the peasant by the throat. 
He must pay — for he only can. Food can. only be got out of the 
ground, and all these devices of soldiership, and law, and arithmetic, 
are but ways of getting at last down to him, the furrow-driver, and 
snatching the roots from him as he digs." — " Fors Clavigera," Part 
II., p. 27. By John Ruskin, LL.D. New York: John Wiley & 
Sons, 1883. 



EDUCATIOISr AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 291 

ful ; he seeks to dignify liis life and adorn his home ; he 
patronizes art ; he draws to himself the art treasures of 
the world. 

The standing armies and navies of Europe have cost 
the European laborer the sacrilice of all these pleasing 
and noble aspirations. Beyond the point of providing 
for " immediate pressing wants " he has not been able 
to pass. His surplus goes to the tax-gatherer, to feed 
and clothe the army and the navy. His desire for edu- 
cation, his love of the beautiful, his hope of a digni- 
fied life, and of a home adorned by art — these all are 
dreams, illusions, which vanish into thin air in the pres- 
ence of the substantial fact of the annual European bud- 
get — for the support of the standing armies and navies 
$700,000,000 ! 

In the way of the payment of the national debts of 
Europe her standing armies and navies rear themselves 
like an impassable wall. Against any general education- 
al system they have hitherto constituted an insurmounta- 
ble barrier ; and in the future, as in the past, their main- 
tenance dooms the masses to illiteracy. They stand in 
the way especially of the incorporation, in the curricu- 
lum of the public schools, of the manual element in edu- 
cation, because it is the most expensive, as it is the most 
important part of instruction. 

Germany affords an admirable example of the power 
of education, even though defective in character, and of 
the disgust with which standing armies inspire an intel- 
ligent people. The Germans are the best-educated peo- 
ple in Europe. The educational system of Germany was 
established by Prussia as a politico - economic measure 
after the humiliation of the German States by Bona- 
parte. Said Frederick William, " Though territory, pow- 

13 



292 MANUAL TRAINING. 

er, and prestige be lost, they can be regained by ac- 
quiring intellectual and moral power." The outcome 
of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 verified the truth 
of this prediction. Her freedom from debt enabled 
Prussia to inaugurate and carry forward a comprehen- 
sive educational system, which in turn enabled her not 
only to vanquish her ancient enemy, but to make Prance 
pay the cost of her own humiliation. Thus at a single 
stroke Prussia avenged the defeats suffered at the hands 
of the first ^Napoleon, and permanently weakened France 
by compelling her vastly to increase her national debt. 

The alacrity with which the French people subscribed 
for the new bonds was much remarked upon, at the time, 
as evincing both financial soundness and patriotism. But 
the really grave feature of the situation — the vast aug- 
mentation of the public burdens of France — was scarcely 
mentioned, and was, perhaps, philosophically considered 
only by that astute statesman. Prince Bismarck. The 
war with Germany cost France $2,000,000,000, and com- 
pelled an enormous increase of taxation. The debt state- 
ment for 1877 was $4,635,000,000 — the expenditures 
$533,000,000 ; and of this latter sum $373,000,000 were 
absorbed by the army, the navy, and the national debt ! 

The significant feature of the European situation is 
the freedom from debt of Germany. It is by virtue of 
this fact that she holds the first place in Europe. Her 
rate of taxation is as low as that of little Switzerland. 
All the other Great Powers are hampered by great debts. 
Spain is bankrupt ; she does not pay the interest on her 
debt. Austria increases her debt every year ; she is prac- 
tically bankrupt. It is only a question of time, if stand- 
ing armies and navies continue to be maintained and 
wars to occur, when all the debtor nations will be re- 



EDUCATION" AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 293 

duced to bankruptcy.* The nation sinks as the column 
of debt rises. France cannot double her debt again and 
make her people pay interest on it. England draws 
from her people a larger jper capita revenue than any 
other nation of Europe, and she has nearly touched the 
limit of their capacity to pay taxes. A sudden and con- 
siderable increase of her debt would strain the Govern- 
ment, and might shatter it. 

Thus, the more searching the analysis of the Euro- 
pean situation, the more clear does the excej^tional 
strength of Germany appear. But out of her abundant 
strength a weakness has been evolved. The system of 
education that rendered the Germans so powerful against 
France as soldiers, has made them thoughtful citizens. 
It has revolutionized the public sentiment of Germany 
on the subject of government. In the place of passion 
it has substituted reason. The Prussian "subject" for 
whom the king thought, has become a German citizen 
who thinks for himself, and one of his earliest reflec- 
tions is that, in modern civilization, a standing army is a 
solecism. The ignorant Prussian hated the French be- 
cause hatred of them was enjoined upon him as the cor- 
relative of the duty of blind devotion to his king. But 
the educated German knows that the sole motive of the 
continuance of the standing army is the maintenance of 
the balance of power, which is merely a tacit agree- 
ment between the European rulers, by divine right, to 
perpetuate their own lease of power. Hence the "in- 



* "The progress of the enormous debts -which at present oppress, 
and will in the long run probably ruin, all the great Nations of Eu- 
rope, has been pretty uniform." — " Wealth of Nations," Vol. III., p. 
393. By Adam Smith, LL.D., F.R.S. Edinburgh, 1819. 



294 MANUAL TEAINING. 

tellectual and moral power" conferred upon the German 
people, by education, reacts upon Germany in the form 
of a drain of the flower of her population by emigra- 
tion. 

The citizenship of Germany is more valuable, in an 
economic sense, than that of any other country of Eu- 
rope — more valuable because Germany is the most pow- 
erful nation of the European family of States; more 
valuable because of them all she alone is free from debt ; 
more valuable by reason of her more moderate scale of 
taxation. But she still furnishes the heaviest contingent 
to the columns of emigration steadily moving towards 
the United States. In a word, the most valuable citi- 
zenship in Euro]3e — that of Germany — is least regarded 
and most freely surrendered. Why ? Because the Ger- 
mans are the best- educated people in Europe. Poor as 
the German primary school system is, it is universal, and 
it has destroyed what it was founded chiefly to promote 
and perpetuate, namely, reverence for, and loyalty to, 
government by Divine right. German intelligence re- 
volts from taxation for the support of a standing army. 
It revolts from the theory and policy of hate upon which 
standing armies are based. It comprehends perfectly 
that the standing army is a menace to the freedom 
of the citizen, at home, rather than a defence against 
pretended danger from abroad. It scorns, as absurd, 
the threadbare assumption that Englishmen, Frenchmen, 
Italians, Russians, and Germans desire to fly at one an- 
other's throats, and that they can be restrained only by 
a cordon of bayonets. It realizes that the perpetuation 
of the era of hate, through the standing army, retards 
the mental and physical progress of the human race, 
which would be greatly promoted by the free intermin- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 395 

gling of tlie various nationalities of Eiirope.^^ That it is 
from the standing army that the emigrant flees is shown 
by the records of the military department of the Ger- 
man government. 

In the year 1883 twenty-nine thousand men were ar- 
rested for attempting to emigrate from Germany to avoid 
the required military service, and more than a hundred 
thousand others, from whom service was due, refused, 
both to report for duty, and to furnish the required ex- 
cuses for the failure to enroll themselves. 

The law of Germany requires every male citizen, capa- 
ble of bearing arms, to serve three years in the standing 
army — to devote three of the best years of his life to the 
preservation of the balance of power in Europe ! In ad- 
dition, he must serve four years in the reserve, and five 
years in the landwehr. And this service is regarded as 
a debt due the government. Every male child born in 
Germany contracts this debt, in contemplation of law, in 
the act of drawing his first breath, and nothing but death 
releases him from the obligation. Having been taught 
in the emperor's schools to love the emperor, when he 
reaches the military age, a musket is placed in his hands, 

* The multiplicity of languages is due to the policy of interna- 
tional hate, inaugurated by the nations of Europe to promote the 
selfish purposes of rulers. Barbarism is diversity; civilization is 
unity. The human race is one, provided it is civilized, aud it should 
have but one language. Language is a tool, and time consumed in 
acquiring skill in the use of more than one tool designed for the 
same end, is wasted. The standing armies of Europe obstruct the 
way to unity of language. The time will come when all civilized 
peoples will speak one tongue. Then language will cease to be a 
mere vain accomplishment, and become what it ought always to 
have been, the simple means of familiarizing the mind with things, 
and of the communication of knowledge. 



296 MANUAL TRAINING. 

and he is taught to shoot the emperor's enemies. If he 
refuses to enter the army he is fined ; if he refuses to 
pay the fine he is imprisoned. 

The German emperor attributes the decline in the 
military organization to the negligence of his military 
staff, but its true cause is the German educational sys- 
tem. The steady augmentation of the rolls of military 
delinquents is the measure of the growth of German in- 
telligence. The ease with which Germany conquered 
France flattered the vanity of the educated German, but 
it did not prevent him from emigrating to America. To 
the cultured mind the army that wins the contest in 
which no principle is involved is as odious as the army 
that loses. To the cultured mind all standing armies are 
odious, because they are an embodied assumption of the 
barbarism of man, and a denial of the efficacy of reason. 
The great stream of German emigration attests the su- 
periority of German culture. The educated German de- 
clines to learn the art of shooting the emperor's enemies, 
but he knows that Germany is, in fact, governed by its 
standing army — by muskets — and he quits the countiy. 

Thus the chief power of Germany becomes her chief 
weakness. A system of education which has made her 
the first nation in Europe produces wide-spread discon- 
tent among her people, because she is governed by obso- 
lete ideas. Nor can the loss in virile force suffered by 
Germany, through emigration, be made good by a counter 
movement of immigrants from the less favored countries 
of Europe. The economic condition of Germany — her 
freedom from debt and her comparatively low rate of 
taxation — invite such a movement. But the European 
policy of international hate, created and perpetuated by 
standing armies, forbids Germany to recoup her losses of 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 297 

men to America, through corresponding gains of men 
from the overtaxed populations of neighboring coun- 
tries. The grinning skeletons of a hundred battles in 
which the rival nationalities of Europe have been pitted 
against one another, rise to challenge the social inter- 
mingling of peoples separated for centuries by the arts 
of diplomacy, traditions of blood and flames, and the ser- 
ried ranks of standing armies. 

The disposition of Germans to emigrate irritates the 
emperor and his prime-minister. The loss of numbers 
might be borne, for notwithstanding the steady outward 
flow of emigrants there is a slight increase of popula- 
tion in Germany. But it is the quality of the exodus 
that annoys the emperor and his chancellor. The Ger- 
man emigrants are strong men and women — strong men- 
tally and physically. All the weaklings, all the paupers, 
all the imbeciles, the aged, and the infirm remain, only 
the young and vigorous go. Those who go have been 
taught at the expense of the State to love the emperor 
and hate his enemies, but they do neither. The German 
system of education, from the point of view of rulers by 
divine right, is, hence, a conspicuous failure. It makes 
better men but poorer subjects. The more thoroughly 
the man is educated the more valuable he is to himself 
and to the community, but the less valuable to his king. 
His growth in intelligence is the measure of his decline 
in reverence for rulers by divine right, and the standing 
armies by which they are alone supported. This is the 
cause of German emigration, and its effect is to weaken 
the German Empire. Germany is not so strong as she 
was when her armies swept over France ; she declines in 
power each year, through the loss of men — the sole sup- 
port of a State. They flee from her standing army to 



298 MANUAL TEAINING. 

the United States, a republic with only a handful of sol- 
diers. 

The system of education established to increase the 
power of Prussia in Europe has accomplished its pur- 
pose. But it has done much more — something never 
thought of by its founders. It has produced a wide- 
spread feeling of intelligent discontent ; and discontent 
is an inarticulate cry for reform. The cultured German 
scorns the standing army, refuses to serve in it, protests 
against its longer existence, and demands more and bet- 
ter education for his children. His protest is unheeded, 
and he quits the country. But the demand for higher 
education is not, cannot be, disregarded. Intelligence is 
contagious; it infects with a thirst for knowledge all 
with whom it comes in contact. Education is the arch- 
revolutionist whose onward march is irresistible. Soon 
a riper culture will make the German Protestants more 
courageous and more imperative in their demands, and 
they will remain in the country to enforce them. Edu- 
cation made Germany the first military power in Europe ; 
but education conld not have been put to a more ignoble 
service. The desire of intelligent Germans is that Ger- 
many shall become the first industrial power in Europe, 
and this desire can be realized by the disbandment of her 
standing army. 

This review of the situation in Europe shows that it is 
practicable for her to restore, at once, to productive em- 
ployments three millions of men — the flower of her 
population — now not only idle, but a public charge. It 
shows, also, that it is practicable for Europe to place, at 
once, at the disposal of her educators $700,000,000 per 
annum instead of $70,000,000 per annum, as at present. 
The corollary of these two propositions is a third, name- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 299 

ly, that it is practicable for Europe to extinguish her 
national debts in fifty-four years. It follows that the 
regular armies of Europe alone stand in the way of 
universal education, and of universal industrial pros- 
perity. 

Standing armies everywhere within the lines of ad- 
vanced civilization must soon disappear before the march 
of education.* Social questions cannot much longer be 
settled by emigration. The world's virgin soil is being 
rapidly appropriated. When the surface of the whole 
earth shall have become occupied, barbarisms of every 
nature will be intolerable. Man must then be highly 
civilized, and the only highly civilizing influence is edu- 
cation. The age of force is passing away ; the age of 
science and art — the^ge of industrial development — has 
begun, and standing armies are as abnormal in Europe 

* "This nation to-day is in profouDd peace with the world; but 
in my judgment it has before it a great dutj^ which will not only 
make that profound peace permanent, but shall set such an example 
as will absolutely abolish war on this continent, and by a great ex- 
ample and a lofty moral precedent shall ultimately abolish it in other 
continents. I am justified in saying that every one of the seventeen 
independent Powers of North and South America is not only willing 
but ready — is not only ready but eager — to enter into a solemn com- 
pact in a congress that may be called in the name of peace, to agree 
that if, unhappily, differences shall arise — as differences will arise 
between men and nations — they shall be settled upon the peaceful 
and Christian basis of arbitration. 

"And, as I have often said before, I am glad to repeat, in this great 
centre of civilization and power, that in my judgment no national 
spectacle, no international spectacle, no continental spectacle, could 
be more grand than that the republics of the Western world should 
meet together and solemnly agree that neither the soil of North nor 
that of South America shall be hereafter stained bj^ brothers' blood." 
— Extract from the Speech of Hon. James G. Blaine at the Delmonico 
Dinner, October 29, 1884. 

13* 



300 MANUAL TRAINING. 

now as slavery was in the United States twenty-five years 
ago.* 

Standing armies are the instrnments of tyranny ; they 
are the last analysis of selfishness, the incarnation of de- 
pravity; for they do not reason — they strike. It is 
worthy of note that the standing armies of Europe are 
coeval with the revival of learning, and the revival of 
learning was a revival of the Greco-Roman subjective 
educational methods. The logical effect of those meth- 
ods was the promotion of selfishness, and the standing 
armies conserved the selfish designs of the rulers of the 
newly-formed States. It is hence not a mere coincidence 
that standing armies and the revival of learning through 
subjective processes of thought are of common origin. 
The Machiavellian philosophy of cruelty, duplicity, and 
contempt of man sprung logically from egoism, and as 
logically led to the formation of standing armies — bodies 
of armed men, trained, under compulsion, to kill, burn, 
and destroy. 

The synonyms of the standing army are selfishness 
and its vile issue, feudalism, serfdom, slavery, ignorance, 
and contempt of man. These conditions are passing 
away, and the standing army, the worst, as it is the most 
costly relic of savagery, nmst pass away with them. It 
cannot withstand the advance of the new education, 
whose mission is peace, whose quest is the truth, whose 
premise is a fact, whose conclusion is a thing of use and 
beauty, and whose goal is justice. 

* "It is only slowly, and after having been long in contact with 
society, that man becomes more indulgent towards others and more 
severe towards himself." — " Suicide: an Essay on Comparative Moral 
Statistics," p. 226. By Henry Morselli, M.D. New York: D. Ap- 
pleton& Co., 1882. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 301 



CHAPTER XXV. 
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM— HISTORIC. 

AMERICA. 

An Old Civilization in a New Country.— Old Methods in a New Sys- 
tem of Schools. — Sordid Views of Education. — The highest Aim 
Money-getting. — Herbert Spencer on the English Schools. — Same 
Defects in the American Schools. — Maxims of Selfishness. — The 
Cultivation of Avarice. — Political Incongruities. — Negroes escap- 
ing from Slavery called Fugitives from Justice. — The Results of 
Subjective Educational Processes. — Climatic Influences alone saved 
America from becoming a Slave Empire. — Illiteracy. — Abnormal 
Growth of Cities.— Failure of Justice. — Defects of Education shown 
in Reckless and Corrupt Legislation. — Waste of an Empire of Pub- 
lic Land.— Henry D. Lloyd's History of Congressional Land Grants. 
— The Growth and Power of Corporations. — The Origin of large 
Fortunes, Speculations. — Old Social Forces producing old Social 
Evils. — Still America is the Hope of the World. — The Right of 
Suffrage in the United States justifies the Sentiment of Patriotism. 
— Let Suffrage be made Intelligent and Virtuous, and all Social 
Evils will yield to it; and all the Wealth of the Country is subject 
to the Draft of the Ballot for Education. — The Hope of Social Re- 
form depends upon a complete Educational Revolution. 

The discovery of America startled Europe. It was a 
great blow to prevailing dogmatisms. It upset many 
learned (?) tlieories. It swept away patristic geography. 
It completed the figure of the earth, rendering it sus- 
ceptible of intelligent study. The advantages of such 
investigation accrued to man, to a degree, before the so- 
cial and civil life of America began. In the century and 
a quarter which elapsed between the landing of Colum- 
bus and that of the Pilgrims, on these shores, considera- 



302 MANUAL TRAINING. 

ble social and political progress was made in Europe, 
and especially in England. From the turbulent scenes of 
the reigns of James I. and Charles I., which eventuated 
in the Cromwellian rebellion and victory of the Com- 
mons, the Pilgrims escaped. They not only bore with 
them, to the new continent, the impress of the long 
struggle for liberty waged by the English people, but 
they were, in a certain sense, the product of the progress 
of all the ages. But they constituted only a small part 
of the column of immigrants. Detacliments of the Cav- , 
aliers came also, and Germans, Frenchmen, and Irishmen 
came with them. 

The discovery of America was a sort of new creation,* 
but its almost virgin soil was destined to become the 
home of an old civilization. From all the nationalities of 
the Old "World the 'New "World was to be peopled. The 
ambitious, the restless, the adventurous, the enterprising, 
and the hardy of every tongue, were gradually to assem- 
ble in the new field of action. The manner in which 
they treated the natives of the new country, both north 
and south, showed their origin and their training. Their 
determination to conquer and hold the new territory was 
but thinly disguised. Their descent upon the Atlantic 
coast was not the exact counterpart of that of Cffisar upon 
the coast of Britain, but it was the same in spirit ; and 
the active trade in slaves which soon sprang up, and 
which was thereafter vigorously prosecuted for two hun- 
dred years, showed the taint of savagery — the impress of 
Roman cruelty, rapacity, and injustice. 



* " The discovery of America is the greatest event whicli bas ever 
taken place in this world of ours, one half of which had hitherto 
been unknown to the other. All that until now appeared extraordi- 
nary seems to disappear before this sort of new creation." — Voltaire. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 303 

It is evident that in its most important feature — tlie 
formation of character — education had made little if any 
progress at the time of the organization of civil society 
in America. The democratic idea was not new. It found 
expression in every form during the struggles of Greece 
and Rome, and the revival of learning had led to the 
discussion of governmental questions in the light of his- 
tory. Besides, the reformation of Luther had opened 
the way to the last analysis of dissent in the person of 
Eoger Williams, who asserted the right of absolute free- 
dom of thought and speech. Of the religious right of 
private judgment the political right of an equal voice in 
public affairs is the corollary. Hence, that the Puritans 
should establish the town organizations so justly lauded 
by M. Tocqueville was quite logical.* Nor was the 
public-school system less logical ; all citizens being mem- 
bers of the government, all children must be prepared 
for the duties of citizenship. But unfortunately the old 
system of education was put into the new schools, as the 
old civilizations had been transferred to the new country. 
The system of education under which the kings and rul- 
ing classes of England and of the continent of Europe 
were trained to selfishness, cruelty, and injustice, was 
heedlessly adopted in the schools of l^ew England, which 
became the models of schools throughout the country. 



* "Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to 
science; they bring it within the people's reach, thej' teach men how 
to nse and how to enjoy it. . . . The township institutions of New 
England form a complete and regular whole; they are old; they have 
the support of the laws, and the still stronger support of the manners 
of the community, over which they exercise a prodigious influence." 
— "Democracy in America," Vol. I., p. 7G. By Alexis De Tocque- 
ville. Boston: John Allyn, 1876. 



304 MANUAL TRAINING. 

The popular idea in regard to the schools was (1) that 
they fitted their pupils for the duties of citizenshij), or, 
more properly, for the art of governing, and (2) that 
they taught the art of getting on in the world ; and get- 
ting on in the world was interpreted to mean getting and 
keeping money. That this sordid view of education was 
generally held in the rural districts of ITew England is 
shown by the fact that any culture beyond a limited and 
imperfect knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic 
was regarded as superfluous. IN'ot even the rudiments of 
either the sciences or the arts were imparted, and yet it 
is only through a knowledge of the sciences and the arts 
that progress in civilization is made. The early settlers 
of New England devised a new system of schools, but 
they imported into them an old system of education, the 
Greco-Roman subjective system, introduced into Eng- 
land with the revival of learning. Of this system Mr. 
Herbert Spencer says, " Had there been no teaching but 
such as is given in our public schools, England would 
now be what it was in feudal times." And he adds : 

" The vital knowledge, that by which we have grown 
as a nation to what we are, and which now underlies our 
whole existence, is a knowledge that has got itself taught in 
nooks and corners, while the ordained agencies for teach- 
ing: have been mumblinei: little else but dead formulas."^" 

But these are merely negative effects of subjective 
methods of education. The positive evil effect of them 

* ' ' That "which our school courses leave almost entirely out, vre 
thus find to be that which most nearly concerns the business of life. 
All our industries would cease were it not for that information which 
men begin to acquire as they best may after their education is said 
to be finished." — "Education," p. 54. By Herbert Spencer. New 
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 305 

is selfishness, the sum of all villanies. Under the new 
system of schools — schools for all — the old philosophy of 
life flourished. Under the name of prudence, selfishness 
was deified. The maxim of Herbert—" Help thyself and 
God will help thee" — was reproduced by Franklin in a 
hundred forms. The child was taught, not that " The 
half is more than the whole," but that " In the race of 
life the devil takes the hindmost." 

Thus greed and avarice were cultivated to the sacri- 
fice of honesty. Calling selfishness prudence led to con- 
founding right and wrong — freedom and slavery. Hence 
we have the Declaration of Independence containing the 
lofty sentiment, "All men are created equal," and the 
Constitution throwing the shield of its protection over 
human bondage. A false system of education led to 
political incongruities of the grossest character, as, in the 
preamble to the Constitution, the declaration of its high 
purpose — to establish justice and secure the blessings of 
liberty — and in the body of the instrument a guaranty 
of the slave-trade for twenty-five years, and a compact 
that it should be the duty of the national army to shoot 
rebellious slaves, and the duty of free citizens, of the free 
States, to hunt down escaping slaves and surrender them 
to their owners in the slave States. 

The failure of the prevailing system of education to 
promote rectitude and right thinking was so complete 
that negroes escaping from slavery were called " fugitives 
from justice !" Its failure was so complete that the very 
streets of Boston in which patriots had struggled to the 
death in the cause of liberty now echoed the groans of 
the slave, and resounded with the clank of his chains. 
Its failure was so complete that in Faneuil Hall, the 
cradle of liberty, slavery was justified. Its failure was 



306 MANUAL TRAINING. 

SO complete that a senator, for daring to characterize 
slavery as barbaric, was stricken down and beaten with a 
chib, until lie lay helpless in a pool of blood on the floor 
of the legislative hall of the great, free republic. 

These are characteristics of the early civilizations, the 
civilizations of Greece and Rome. They are the product 
of selfishness, and they show that subjective educational 
processes — processes which proceed from the abstract to 
the concrete, thus violating the natural law of investiga- 
tion — produce the same effects in the nineteenth century 
as they did in the first century. 

Ethically, slavery was tried only by the test of self- 
interest. In the North, as in Europe, it was not profit- 
able, and it faded away ; in the South, in the cotton and 
rice fields, it was thought to be profitable, and it spread 
and flourished. That the opposition to slavery, at the 
IJ^orth, did not grow out of education in the schools, is 
evident, because the sons of tha Southern ruling class 
were educated in the high schools and colleges of the 
l^orth ; but they became, notwithstanding such training, 
almost to a man, slavery propagandists. The heinous- 
ness of slavery was perceptible only to those who had no 
personal interest in its perpetuation. It is plain that the 
effect of the education of the schools upon the youth of 
the country was to make them callous to the common 
impressions of right and wrong ; in a word, to render 
them thoroughly selfish. 

It is difficult to resist the conclusion that, if slavery had 
been as profitable at the ISTorth as it was at the South, it 
would have been j)erpetuated, and would have poisoned 
the infant civilization of America as that of Home was 
vitiated and destroyed. Assuming the truth of this 
hypothesis, climate conditions, not education, saved this 



EDUCATIOISr AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 307 

continent from the scourge of slavery. To the fact that 
a hirge part of the territory of the United States is situ- 
ated in the temperate zone we owe tlie elimination of 
slavery from the social problem. 

Existing social conditions in the United States do not 
differ materially from those of the chief countries of 
Europe. We have only a small standing army; but 
the sole great question which divided the people during 
the first hundred years of our political existence — sla- 
very — had to be settled as such questions have been set- 
tled from the beginning of history, as savages settle all 
questions — by violence, by an appeal to the logic of 
brute force. 

Our government differs from the governments of Eu- 
rope both in principle and form, but the governmental 
influence is only one of many influences which unite to 
mould social habits. The democratic principle, adopted 
as the foundation of our political institutions, has not 
served to counteract the tendency to the formation of 
social class distinctions. The peoj^le lack the wisdom, or 
the virtue, or both, to insist upon the first prerequisite to 
even an approximation to social equality, namely, univer- 
sal education. Of our population of fifty millions, five 
millions of persons, ten years old and over, are unable to 
read, and six millions are unable to write. In the last 
census decade we made the paltry gain of three per cent, 
in intelligence, but in 1880 we had six hundred thousand 
more illiterates than in 1870, JSTearly two millions of 
the legal voters in the United States are illiterates. Ev- 
ery sixth man who offers his ballot at the polls is unable 
to write his name. Under such circumstances class dis- 
tinctions of the most pronounced type are inevitable. 

The tendency to the concentration of populations in 



308 MANUAL TRAINING. 

cities in the United States is not less decided than it is 
in the countries of Europe. In 1820 the population of 
our cities constituted less than one - twentieth of the 
whole population of the country, but in 1880 it consti- 
tuted more than one-fifth of the whole. 

Cities have always been the chief source of societary 
disturbances. In the worst days of the Roman Empire 
tranquillity and prosperity reigned in many of the dis- 
tant provinces. While at the city of Home " every kind 
of vice paraded itself with revolting cynicism," in the 
provinces "there was a middle class in which good-nat- 
ure, conjugal fidelity, probity, and the domestic virtues 
were generally practised." 

Of one of the youngest large cities in the United 
States the superintendent of a Training School for Waifs 
says, " ISTever in the history of this city has infant wretch- 
edness stalked forth in such multiplied and such humili- 
ating forms. It is hard to suppress the conviction that 
even Pagan Eome, in the corrupt age of Augustus, did 
not witness a more i*apid and frightful declension in 
morals than that which can to-day be found in the city 
of Chicago." 

The most graphic description ever given of a waif came 
from the lips of John Morrissey.* He said of himself, 

" I was, at the age of seven years, thrown a waif upon 
the streets of Dublin. I slept in &\leja and under side- 
walks. I disputed with other waifs the possession of a 
crust. We fought like young savages for the garbage 
that fell from the basket of the scullion. The strongest 



* A noted pugilist, proprietor of gambling-houses in New York 
City and at Saratoga Springs, and a politician wlio represented a 
New York City district in Congress. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 309 

won and satisfied the cravings of hunger; the weakest 
starved. I had no idea that anything was to be gained 
by other means than brute force. Hence my code of 
moral and political ethics — the strongest man is the best 
man. I became a pugilist." 

The substantial citizen who passes the street waif with 
contempt should reflect that ten or a dozen years later 
he will meet him, a full-grown man, at the polls, still 
clothed in rags, perhajDS, but his peer in all the rights of 
citizenship. It was the unfortunates of the dark alleys 
and noxious streets of IS'ew York — the waifs, the savages 
of the John Morrissey type — that made Tweedism* pos- 
sible, that made robbery in the name of law possible, that 
made taxation the equivalent of confiscation in that city. 

Mr. Charles Dickens, in " Bleak House," in the course 
of a pen-picture of a wretched quarter of London, under 
the name of " Tom - all - alones," shows how ignorance, 
poverty, and vice react upon society. He says, " There 
is not an atom of Tom's slime, not a cubic inch of any 
pestilential gas in which he lives, not one obscenity or 
degradation about him, not an ignorance, not a wicked- 
ness, not a brutality of his committing but shall work its 
retribution through every order of society, up to the 
proudest of the proud, and to the highest of the high." 

The presence of the poison is already shown in the 
failure of justice. These waifs, grown to man's estate, 
but destitute of education and moral principle, wielding 
the power of the ballot, desecrate the jury -room with 
their vile presence, and tug at the skirts of sheriffs, 



* For an account of the career of "William Marcy Tweed, sec " The 
American Cyclopaedia," Vol. XVI., p. 85. New York: D. Apple- 
ton & Co., 1881. 



310 MANUAL TEAINING. 

prosecuting officers, and judges, and notorious criminals 
escape punishment ! So grievous has the abuse become 
that Judge Lynch has opened his summary, awful court 
in almost every State of the Union. 

To say that this class menaces the government with 
destruction is to state it mildly. In every case of the 
failure of justice the government is in part subverted ; 
for when crime goes unpunished, the law, violated in 
that particular instance, becomes a dead letter ; and when 
lynching shall have become the rule, and the execution 
of the law the exception, government by law will have 
ceased to exist — it will have given way to government 
by force. Then the army will be invoked to shoot down 
the men for whose education the law failed to provide, 
in every city of the land, as it was invoked in Pittsburg 
in 1877. 

What are we doing to avert this danger which threat- 
ens our institutions ? With the exception of here and 
there a weak effort on the part of a few humanitarians, 
as in the training school referred to, we are leaving hun- 
dreds of thousands of waifs to develop into savages, and, 
what is worse, savages with the power to tax civilized 
people ! We have a system of public schools into which 
such children as choose may enter to a certain limit, re- 
main as long as they please, and depart when they please. 
But there are thousands of children in every large city 
who could not enter if they would, and who are not com- 
pelled to receive the civilizing benefits of education, and 
who hence join the army of waifs and study the art of 
savagery ; and, as has been remarked, they go to swell 
the ranks of a populace as depraved as that which in 
Eome cried for " bread and circuses !" and sacked the 
city while it was in flames. 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 31 1 

The defective, not to say vicious character of our sys- 
tem of education, is shown b}'- the reckless course of our 
legislators on tlie subject of the disposition of the public 
domain. William the Conqueror, conceiving tha,t any 
social revolution is incomplete until it disturbs the pro- 
prietorship of land, confiscated the entire landed estates 
of England, and conferred what remained of the proprie- 
tary, after reservations in the Crown', upon his retainers, 
the l^ormans. Eight hundred years have elapsed since 
the issue of William's land-tenure edict, but it still re- 
mains the controlling feature of the British Constitution. 
It has compelled the deportation of millions of English- 
men ; it has reduced the masses of Scotland to a grind- 
ing poverty, and converted their country into hunting- 
grounds for the amusement of the landlord class ; it has 
depopulated Ireland, and exasperated almost to madness 
the remnant of her people. 

But we have failed to profit by the example of Eng- 
land. Our legislators have been blind to the lessons of 
history, or they have been corrupt. They have been ig- 
norant of political and social laws, or they have been 
wanting in rectitude. In the period of thirty years, 
ended in 1880, Congress gave to railway corporations 
over 240,000 square miles, or 154,067,553 acres, of the 
best public lands in the States and Territories of the 
Union — an area double that of the whole kingdom of 
Great Britain and Ireland, including the adjacent isles. 

On the 17th of March, 1883, the Chicago Daily Trib- 
%ine published a history of these land grants, compiled 
by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, under the following summary : 

" The story of the dissipation of our great national 
inheritance — thrown aioay hy Congress, wasted hy the 
Land Office, stolen hy thieves. A land monopoly worse 



313 MANUAL TRAINING. 

than that of England^ tegotten in America. English 
monopoly is in fannilies ', American monopoly is in 
corporations ', and corporations are the only aristocrats 
that have no soids, and never die.''^ 

The following passages from the opening paragraphs 
of Mr. Lloyd's history are reproduced here by permission 
of the anthor : 

" The public are profoundly ignorant of the facts about 
the public land. They know, in a dim way, that it is 
passing out of their hands, and that huge monopolies are 
being created out of the lands which they meant should 
be the inheritance of the settler. The land set apart for 
homes for families has been made into empires for cor- 
porations. In the story recited below, every element of 
human fault and fraud will be seen to have been at work 
in the spoliation of the land of the people. Congress 
has been extravagant and has failed to act when part 
of the results of its extravagance might have been saved. 
The Land Office has been inadequately equipped by Con- 
gress, and has on its own account been careless, dishonest, 
and traitorous to the interests of the people. It has been 
wax in the hands of the great railroad corporations, but 
double-edged steel in the side of the poor settler. It has 
overruled decisions of the Supreme Court and nullified 
acts of Congress to betray its trust and enrich the rail- 
roads, but has refused even to exercise its discretion when 
the home of a settler, held by a righteous title, was to be 
confiscated at the demand of corporate greed. The nig- 
gardliness of Congress makes clerks, on salaries of twelve 
hundred to eighteen hundred dollars a year, untrained in 
the law, knowing nothing of the rules of evidence, judges 
of the law and facts in cases involving millions of dollars 
and thousands of homes. There is no worse chapter in 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM, 313 

the history of government than the facts we have to give 
showing the deliberate and heartless evictions of the Eu- 
ropean immigrant and the American settler in order to 
give their farms to covetous corporations. The land- 
grant roads have had millions of acres granted them by 
the Land Office in excess of the grants by Congress. 
The whole story is summed up in the recent remark of 
one who had thoroughly investigated the subject — that 
the history of the management of the land-grant roads 
by the Land Office is a history of the management of the 
Land Office by the railroads. 

" 'No chapter in this story will be found of more som- 
bre interest than the statements made as to the Supreme 
Court by the Senate Committee on Public Lands, in a re- 
port submitted by Senator Yan Wyck recommending a . 
bill to compel the railroads to pay taxes on their lands. 
Its decisions as to the titles of the railroads and the set- 
tlers to the lands, like those of a weathercock, have point- 
ed the way the corporation blew its breath." 

The summary of Mr. Lloyd's paper by the editor of 
the Tribune, as a preface to its publication, and the fore- 
going characterization of the acts of Congress, of the 
Land Office, and of the Supreme Court, by Mr. Lloyd, 
are fully justified by the alleged facts marshalled in the 
body of the sketch ; and these allegations, after a year 
and a half of public scrutiny, stand unchallenged. 

It would be difficult to conceive of a more reckless 
series of legislative acts than those through which the 
public domain in the United States has been squandered ; 
and they are rendered either ignorant or vicious by the 
fact that in the vast empire surrendered almost totally 
without consideration, each legislator, in common with 
the people by and for whom lie was deputed to act, had 



314 MANUAL TRAINING. 

a personal interest. Througli this series of acts of Con- 
gress the public domain was rudely wrested from its 
rightful owners, the people; the abnormal growth of 
cor23orate jDower unduly promoted, and a tendency to 
the concentration, in a few hands, of the landed estates of 
the country fostered. 

The social and economic effects of this land legislation 
must be very great and far-reaching. Of the effects of 
the concentration of landed estates in a few hands we 
need not speak ; they are sufficiently plain in England, 
Scotland, and Ireland.* But great corporations are a cre- 
ation of yesterday ; they are the product of steam. The 
railway, the factory, the mine of iron or coal, the fur- 
nace, the foundery, and the forge — these vast interests, 
chartered and endowed with certain muniments of sov- 
ereignty, are, as property, almost as indestructible as 
landed estates protected by the law of primogeniture. 
Men are trained from generation to generation to the 
care and conduct of them, and hence they are far less 
liable to waste and dispersion than private estates, which. 



* "The more essential and important consideration is this — that 
whenever the few rapidly accumulate excessive wealth, the many 
must, necessarily, become comparatively poorer. ... In every case 
in which we have traced out the efficient causes of the present de- 
pression we have found it to originate in customs, laws, or modes of 
action whicli are ethically unsound, if not positively immoral. Wars 
and excessive war armaments, loans to despots or for war purposes, 
the accumulation of vast wealth by individuals, excessive specula- 
tion, adulteration of manufactured goods, and, lastly, our had land 
system, with its insecurity of tenure, excessive rents, confiscation of 
tenants' property, its common enclosures, evictions, and depopulation 
of the rural districts— all come under this category." — "Bad Times," 
pp. G5, 117. By Alfred Russel Wallace, LL.D. Loudon : Macmillan 
& Co., 1885. ' 



EDUCATION AKD THE SOCIAL PKOBLEM. 315 

in transmission, may be subjected to disastrous changes 
of management. Being also enterprises of a semi-public 
character, the public is bound, as well as their owners, to 
see to their preservation. 

It is to a small number of the greatest of these great 
companies that Congress has given an empire of land 
in the West — an area double that owned by the lords 
of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In the railway pro- 
prietor of the United States the two great elements of 
power are united — steam and land. It needs no argu- 
ment to show that only the nation can control the pro- 
prietor of both the land and the railway — the sole means 
of reaching a market for the products of the land. The 
appellative — kingship — to the railway proprietor is not a 
misnomer. He is a real potentate, both by virtue of the 
multitudes of men over whom he rules autocratically, 
and of the magnitude of the revenue he wields. Presi- 
dents come and go, but he remains. Legislators investi- 
gate him and report upon him, but they are met by a 
flat denial of the authority of either State or nation to in- 
terfere with his " vested rights." He claims the right of 
himself and associates to control, absolutely, the internal 
commerce of the country ; and this claim involves the 
pretence that they may confiscate merchandise seeking a 
market by charging, for carriage, the full value of the 
thing transported. 

The railway and the factory, the two great products of 
steam, are new factors in the social problem, and to prop- 
erly control them will require new wisdom ; and the new 
wisdom is not to be drawn from old educational fount- 
ains. 

State legislation has been as vicious as that of the na- 
tion. The people of nearly every State in the Union 

14 



316 MANUAL TRAINING. 

haffe been made the victims of great frauds and gross ig- 
norance at the hands of their representatives. In nearly 
every State syndicates have been formed with the design 
of securing valuable franchises without consideration ; 
and to effectuate such designs bribery has been freely and 
successfully resorted to in a vast number of cases. But 
rarely has the guilty agent of the guilty syndicate, or 
the perjured, purchased legislator been brought to jus- 
tice, notwithstanding the fact that exposure has often 
followed the iniquity. 

Evidence of the essentially European character of the 
American civilization is afforded by the prevalence of 
speculation. In Wall Street, ISTew York, on the Board 
of Trade, Chicago, and on the exchanges of all large cities 
speculation rages. The real transactions of those busi- 
ness marts are very small, indeed, as compared with the 
transactions of a speculative character. On the ISTew 
York Cotton Exchange the speculative trades in "fut- 
ures" are thirty times more than the cotton sales. On 
the Chicago Board of Trade the speculative trades in 
" futures " are fifteen times more than the sales of grain 
and provisions, and so of the exchanges of all other large 
cities. To support these speculative operations fresh 
money is required to be constantly poured into the -pool, 
and it is drawn from every class in the community. 
Yery little of the " fresh money " is ever returned. Most 
of it remains in the hands of the pool managers, of those 
whose profession it is to manipulate the markets. Thus 
the fever of speculation extends from centre to circum- 
ference of the country, stimulating bad passions, creating 
distaste for labor, relieving the countryman of his surplus, 
and increasing the already overgrown fortune of the city 
operator. A writer on current topics, discussing this sub- 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 317 

ject, says, "Put your finger on one of our great fortunes, 
and nine times out of ten you will feel underneatLi it the 
cold heart of some one who has mined on the San Fran- 
cisco Stock Exchange, or packed pork on the Chicago 
Board of Trade, or built railroads in "Wall Street." * 

A sufficient number of the salient features of Ameri- 
can civilization have been brought under review to show 
that the new continent has not borne new social fruits. 
Under extremely favorable physical conditions — a coun- 
try of vast resources, a wide range of climates, and a soil 
of great fertility — we planted old social forces, and old 
social evils are in process of rapid development. We are 
transplanted EurojDcans, controlled by European mental 
and moral habitudes. And the virile force, evoked by 
the splendid physical opportunities of a vast new coun- 
try, so intensifies the struggle for wealth and power, that 
European social abuses are not only reproduced, but 
sometimes exaggerated in this land of boasted equal 
political rights. 

But notwithstanding the fact that social tendencies in 
America seem to be similar to those of Europe, it is upon 
America alone that the eyes of mankind rest with an ex- 
pression of ardent hopefulness. Nor is this hope desti- 
tute of a basis of rationality. It is in the United States, 
for the first time in all the ages, that a good reason can 
be given for indulging the sentiment of patriotism. Love 
of country here is a due appreciation of the value of the 
right of suffrage. The private soldier who goes forth to 

* "America does not now suffer from this cause [standing armies], 
but nowhere in the world have colossal fortunes, rabid speculation, 
and great monopolies reached so portentous a magnitude, or exerted 
so pernicious an influence." — "Bad Times," p. 80. By Alfred Rus- 
sel Wallace, LL.D. London : Macmillan & Co., 1885. 



318 MANUAL TKAINING. 

fight the battles of the United States is a man and citi- 
zen, and upon his return from the field he may, with the 
ballot, devote to the education of his children a share of 
the estate of the army contractor who amassed a fortune 
while he defended the country. All the property in the 
United States, whether honestly or dishonestly acquired, 
is subject to the order of the ballot of the citizen. It 
may be taken for war purposes, and it may be taken for 
educational purposes. In the universality of the right 
of suifrage lies the power of correcting all social evils. 
It is through the right of suffrage that the wrongs inflict- 
ed upon a too patient people by corrupt and ignorant 
legislation may be ultimately righted. By the suffrages 
of the peo2>le the tax bill is voted ; and it is through the 
tax bill that the vast estates of corporations and individ- 
uals, whether obtained by dishonest practices or not, may 
be made to contribute to the thorough education of all 
the children of the country. And it is through the 
sentiment of patriotism thus inspired that the right of 
universal suffrage in the United States is destined to 
preservation forever. 

The late proposition to limit suffrage in the city of 
New York is explainable only on the theory put forth 
in this chapter, that our civilization is the product of 
European ideas — that we are Europeans in disguise. On 
any other hypothesis it would be amazing. It is even 
now sufficiently startling that the proposition to restrict 
suffrage should precede the- proposition to make educa- 
tion universal by making it compulsory, and to purge 
it of its glaring defects. Every attempt to restrict the 
right of suffrage in the United States will, however, fail. 
The right of self-government can be taken from the 
American people only by force. The American citizen 



EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 319 

will not vote away his right to vote, as the careless Greek 
sold his freedom, and as the Chinaman sells his Kfe. 

That American social abuses do not spring from free 
suffrage is evident, because similar abuses exist in coun- 
tries where the masses have little or no share in the 
government. Social evils are the product of defective 
education. So long as European educational methods 
prevail in this country, so long European social abuses 
will characterize our civilization. Our education is scant 
in quantity and poor in quality; hence the standard of 
the suffrage is lowered by the presence of ignorance and 
depravity. But when the suffrage shall be better in- 
formed, it will be more honest ; and when it shall have 
become more honest and more intelligent, it will have 
gained the power to grapple with social abuses. 

Such examination of history as we have been able to 
make fails to disclose any radical change in educational 
methods for three thousand years. The charge of Mr. 
Herbert Spencer against tlie schools of England, to wit, 
" That which our school courses leave almost entirely out 
we thus find to be that which most nearly concerns the 
business of life" — this charge applies with almost as 
much force to the schools of the United States as to the 
Greek and Eoman schools of rhetoric and logic. Ba- 
con's aphorism — "Education is the cultivation of a just 
and legitimate familiarity betwixt the mind and things " 
— is two hundred and fifty years old, but it has as yet 
exerted scarcely an appreciable influence upon the meth- 
ods of our public schools. "We still reverse the natural 
order of investigation proceeding from the abstract to the 
concrete, thus lumbering the mind of the student with 
trash which must be removed as a jDreliminary to the 
first step in the real work of education. We still impart 



320 MANUAL TRAINING. 

a knowledge of words instead of a knowledge of things ; 
we still ignore art, notwithstanding the fact that it is 
through art alone that education touches human life. 
"We still inculcate contempt of labor, and teach the stu- 
dent how to " make his way in the world " by his wits, 
rather than by giving an equivalent for what he shall 
receive ; and, worst of all, we continue, through subjec- 
tive j)rocesses of thought, to charge the mind with self- 
ishness, the essence of depravity. 

Meantime, social problems press for a solution, a solu- 
tion here and now. Our social j)roblems cannot be set- 
tled as those of Europe have been, for two hundred 
years, by emigration. We have no Columbus, and if we 
had such an explorer, there is no new hemisphere for 
him to discover. The lesson of all history is, that selfish 
people cannot dwell together in unity. The struggle to 
secure more than a fair share of the products of the labor 
of all is sure to end in a quarrel ; the quarrel ends in a 
revolution, and the revolution, under the glare of flames, 
drowns in blood the records of civilization. But in Amer- 
ica the man must live with his fellows. As Mr, Henry 
D. Lloyd well says, in " Lords of Industry," " Our young 
men can no longer go West ; they must go up or down. 
I*^ot new land, but new virtue must be the outlet for the 
future. Our halt at the shores of the Pacific is a much 
more serious affair than that which brought our ancestors 
to a pause before the barriers of the Atlantic, and com- 
pelled them to practise living together for a few hundred 
years. We cannot hereafter, as in the past, recover free- 
dom by going to the prairies ; we must find it in the 
society of the good." "^■■ 

* North American Review, June, 1884, p. 553. 



EDUCATION" AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. 831 

If we are to find freedom only in the society of the 
good, we must create such a society — a society free from 
selfishness ; for to the stability of society public spirit is 
essential, and with a pure public spirit selfishness is at 
war. Hence, in a system of education like the prevail- 
ing one, which promotes selfishness, the germs of social 
disintegration are present, and, from the beginning, the 
end may with absolute certainty be predicted. It fol- 
lows that any hope of social reform is wholly irrational 
that does not spring from the postulate of a complete 
educational revolution. 



323 MANUAL TRAINING. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 

The Kindergarten and the Manual Training School one in Principle. 
—Russia solved the Problem of Tool Instruction by Laboratory 
Processes. — The Initiatory Step by M. Victor Delia- Vos, Director 
of the Imperial Technical School of Moscow in 1868.— Statement 
of Director Delia- Vos as to the Origin, Progress, and Results of the 
New System of Training. — Its Introduction into all the Technical 
Schools of Russia. — Dr. John D. Runkle, President of the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology, recommends the Russian System 
in 1876, and it is adopted. — Statement of Dr. Runkle as to how 
he was led to the adoption of the Russian System. — Dr. Woodward, 
of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., establishes the second 
School in this Country. — His Historical Note in the Prospectus of 
1882-83.— First Class graduated 1883. — Manual Training in the 
Agricultural Colleges— In Boston, in New Haven, in Baltimore, in 
San Francisco, and other places. — Manual Training at the Meeting 
of the National Educational Association, 1884. — Kindergarten and 
Manual Training Exhibits. — Prof. Felix Adler's School in New 
York City — the most Comprehensive School in the World. — The 
Chicago Manual Training School the first Independent Institution 
of the Kind — its Inception; its Incorporation; its Opening. Its 
Director, Dr. Belfield. — His Inaugural Address. — Manual Training 
in the Public Schools of Philadelphia. — Manual Training in twen- 
ty-four States.— Revolutionizing a Texas College. — Local Option 
Law in Massachusetts. — Department of Domestic Economy in the 
Iowa Agricultural College. — Manual Training in Tennessee, in the 
University of Michigan, in the National Educational Association, 
in Ohio. — The Toledo School for both Sexes. — The Importance of 
the Education of Woman. — The Slcijd Schools of Europe. 

The principle of the manual training scliool exists in 
tlie kindergarten, and for that principle we are indebted 
directly to Froebel, and indirectly to Pestalozzi, Come- 




M. VICTOK DELLA-VOS, THE FOUNDER OF MAJSIUAl, TRAINING IN 
RUSSIA. 



HISTORY OF THP: MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 325 

nius, Rousseau, and Bacon. But it was reserved for 
Russia to solve the problem of tool instruction by the 
laboratory process, and make it the foundation of a great 
reform in education. The initiatory step was taken in 
1868 by M. Yictor Delia- Yos, Director of the Imperial 
Technical. School of Moscow. The following statement 
is extracted from the account given by Director Della- 
Vos of the exhibit of the Moscow school at Philadelphia 
(Centennial of 1876), and at the Paris Exposition in 1878, 
as best showing the inception of the new education : 

"In 1868 tlie school council considered it indispensa- 
ble, in order to secure the systematical teaching of ele- 
mentary practical work, as well as for the more conven- 
ient supervision of the pupils while practically employed, 
to separate entirely the school workshops from the me- 
chanical works in which the orders from private indi- 
viduals are executed, admitting pupils to the latter only 
when they have perfectly acquired the principles of prac- 
tical labor. 

" By the separation alone of the school workshops from 
the mechanical works, the principal aim was, however, 
far from being attained. It was found necessary to 
work out such a method of teaching the elementary 
principles of mechanical art as, firstly, should demand 
the least possible length of time for their acquirement ; 
secondly, should increase the facility of the supervis- 
ion of the graded employment of the pupils ; thirdly, 
should impart to the study of practical work the charac- 
ter of a sound systematical acquirement of knowledge ; 
and fourthly and lastly, should facilitate the demon- 
stration of the progress of every pupil at every stated 
time. Everybody is well aware that tlie successful study 

of any art whatsoever, free-hand or linear drawing, mu- 

14-x- 



326 MANUAL TRAINING. 

sic, singing, painting, etc., is only attainable when the 
first attempts at any of them are strictly subject to the 
laws of gradation and successiveness, when every student 
adheres to a definite method or school, surmounting little 
by little, and by certain degrees, the difficulties encoun- 
tered. 

"All those arts which we have just named possess a 
method of study which has been well worked out and 
defined, because, since they have long constituted a part 
of the education of the well-instructed classes of people, 
they could not but become subject to scientific analysis, 
could not but become the objects of investigation, with a 
view of defining those conditions which might render the 
study of them as easy and well regulated as possible. 

"If we except the attempts made in France in the year 
1867 by the celebrated and learned mechanical engineer, 
A. Cler, to form a collection of models for the practical 
study of the principal methods of forging and welding 
iron and steel, as well as the chief parts of joiners' work, 
and this with a purely demonstrative aim, no one, as far 
as we are aware, has hitherto been actively engaged in 
the working out of this question in its application to the 
study of hand labor in workshops. To the Imperial 
Technical School belongs the initiative in the introduc- 
tion of a systematical method of teaching the arts of 
turning, carpentering, fitting, and forging. 

" To the knowledge and experience in these specialties, 
of the gentlemen intrusted with the management of the 
school workshops, and to their warm sympathy in the 
matter of practical education, we are indebted for the 
drawing up of the programme of systematical instruction 
in the mechanical arts, its introduction in the year 1868 
into the workshops, and also for the preparation of the 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 337 

necessary auxiliaries to study. In the year 1870, at the 
exhibition of manufactures at St. Petersburg, the school 
exhibited its methods of teaching mechanical arts, and 
from that time they have been common to all the tech- 
nical schools of Russia. 

"And now (1878) we present our system of instnic- 
tion, not as a project, but as an accomplished fact, con- 
firmed by the long experience of ten years of success in 
its results." 

For the introduction of the manual element in educa- 
tion to the United States we are indebted to the intel- 
lectual acumen of Dr. John D. Eunkle, Ph.D., LL.D., 
"Walker Professor of Mathematics, Institute of Technol- 
ogy, Boston, Mass. In 1876 Doctor Runkle was Presi- 
dent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 
his official report for that year he gave an exhaustive ex- 
position of the Russian system, in the course of which he 
said, 

" W&went to Philadelphia, therefore, earnestly seeking 
for light in this as well as in all other directions, and this 
special report is now made to ask your attention to a fun- 
damental, and, as I think, complete solution of this most 
important problem of practical mechanism for engineers. 
The question is simply this. Can a system of shop-work 
instruction be devised of sufiicient range and quality 
which will not consume more time than ought to he 
spared from the indispensable studies ? 

"This question has been answered triumphantly in the 
affirmative, and the answer comes from Russia. It gives 
me the greatest pleasure to call your attention to the ex- 
hibit made by the Imperial Technical Schools of St. 
Petersburg and Moscow, consisting entirely of collections 
of tools and samples of shop-work by students, illustrat- 



828 MANUAL TRAINING. 

ing the system wliicli has made these magnificent results 
possible." 

In conclusion Doctor Runkle made the following ear- 
nest recommendation : 

" In the light of the experience which Eussia brings us, 
not only in the form of a proposed system, but proved 
by several years of experience in more than a single 
school, it seems to me that the duty of the Institute is 
plain. We should, without delay, complete our course in 
Mechanical Engineering by adding a series of instruction 
shops, which I earnestly recommend." 

In accordance wdth this recommendation the "new 
school of Mechanic Arts " was created, and made part of 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

In his report for 187T Doctor Eunkle said, 

" The plan announced in my last report, of building 
a series of shops [laboratories] in which to teach the 
students in the department of Mechanical Engineering 
and others the use of tools, and the fundamentaLsteps in 
the art of construction, in accordance with the Russian 
system, as exhibited at Philadelphia in 18T6, has been 
carried steadily forward, and I have now the pleasure of 
announcing its near completion." 

Reference is also made in the same report to the action 
of the trustees of the Institute in acknowledging the re- 
ception of certain models illustrating the system of Me- 
chanic Art education, presented by the government of 
Russia, as follows : 

"At a meeting of the Corporation of the Massachu- 
setts Institute of Technology, held ^November 20, 1877, 
a communication from his Excellency, Hon. George H. 
Boker, American Minister at St, Petersburg, was read, 
announcing the gift to this Institute of eight cases of 




DR. JOHN D. RUNKI.E, THE FOUNDER OF JtANUAL TRAINING IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 331 

models, illustrating the system of Mechanic Art educa- 
tion, as devised and so successfully applied at the Impe- 
rial Technical School of Moscow. The undersigned have 
been charged with the agreeable duty of transmitting to 
his Imperial Highness the following resolutions : 

^'Besolved, That the Corporation of the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology takes this opportunity to cor- 
dially congratulate his Imperial Highness, Prince Pierre 
d'Oldenbourg, that, at the Imperial Technical School of 
Moscow, education in the Mechanic Arts has been for 
the first time based upon philosophical and purely edu- 
cational grounds, fully justifying for it the title of the 
' Russian system.' 

''''Resolved^ That this Corporation hereby tenders its 
grateful thanks to his Inij)erial Highness for his most 
valuable gift, with the tissurance that these models will 
be of the greatest aid in promoting Mechanic Art educa- 
tion not only in the School of this Institute, but in all 
similar schools throughout the United States." 

Appreciating the value of the services rendered to the 
cause of the new education by Dr. Runkle, in introduc- 
ing to the schools of the United States tool practice by 
laboratory methods, and desiring to inform the public of 
the course of thought which led to results so important, 
the author addressed him on the subject. His rejDly, 
under date of May 22, 1884, is in substance as follows : 

" From the first the course in Mechanical Engineering 
has been an important one in the Institute of Technology. 
A few students came with a knowledge of shop-work, 
and had a clear field oj)en to them on graduation, but the 
larger number found it difiicult to enter upon their pro- 
fessional work without first taking one or two years of 
apprenticeship. This always seemed to me a fault in the 



832 MANUAL TRAINING. 

education, and yet I did not see the way to remedy it 
without building ujd manufacturing works in connection 
witli the school — a step which I knew to be an inversion 
of a true educational method. 

"At Philadelphia, in 18Y6, almost the first thing I saw 
was a small case containing three series of models — one 
of chipping and filing, one of forging, and one of ma- 
chine-tool work. I saw at once that they were not parts 
of machines, but simply graded models for teaching the 
manipulations in those arts. In an instant the problem 
I had been seeking to solve was clear to my mind ; a 
plain distinction between a Mechanic Art and its appli- 
cation in some special trade became apparent. 

" My first work was to build up at the Institute a series 
of Mechanic Art shops, or laboratories, to teach these 
arts, just as we teach chemistry and physics by the same 
means. At the same time I believed that this discipline 
could be made a part of general education, just as we 
make the sciences available for the same end through 
laboratory instruction. 

" All teaching has in an important sense a double pur- 
pose : first, the cultivation of the powers of the individ- 
ual, and second, the pursuit of similar subjects, by sub- 
stantially the same means, as a professional end. ISTow 
we use our shops [laboratories] both for educational and 
professional ends. ... In brief, we teach the mechanic 
arts by laboratory methods, and the student applies the 
special skill and knowledge acquired, or not, as circum- 
stances or his inclinations dictate." 

The second manual training school in this country was 
founded as a department of Washington University, St. 
Louis, Mo., by Dr. C. M. Woodward. In a paper read 
before the St. Louis Social Science Association, May 16, 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 333 

1878, Dr. Woodward discussed the subject of education 
both, pliilosopliically and practically. In tlie course of 
his address he gave a full account' of the Russian system 
of manual training as expounded by Dr. Runkle, en- 
dorsed it, and recommended it to the people of St. Louis 
as the true method of education in the following preg- 
nant sentence : " The manual education which begins in 
the kindergarten, before the children are able to read a 
word, should never cease." '"' 

In the same paper Dr. Woodward thus modestly de- 
scribes the beginning of the school wdiich is now one of 
the most highly-esteemed educational institutions of St. 
Louis : 

"With the aid of our stanch friend, Mr. Gottlieb 
Conzelman, we fitted up during last summer a wood- 
working shop, with work-benches and vises for eighteen 
students ; a second shop for vise-w^ork upon metals and 
for machine -work; and a third watli a single outfit of 
blacksmith's tools. During the last few months system- 
atic instruction has been given to different classes in all 
these shops. Special attention has been paid to the use 
of wood - working hand - tools, to wood - turning, and to 
filing." 

These tentative steps promoted a healthy public senti- 
ment, and attracted the attention of several wealthy men, 
who in 1879 contributed the funds for the permanent 
foundation of the school. The prospectus for the year 

* The pressing problem of the time in methods of practical educa- 
tion is to devise suitable manual exercises for the school period em- 
braced in the interim between the end of the kindergarten series of 
lessons and the beginning of the series of laboratory exercises de- 
scribed in this work — the grammar-school period — for children of 
both sexes from six to fourteen years of age. 



334 MANUAL TRAINIlTG. 

1882-83 contains the following " historical note," which 
shows great progress : 

"The ordinance establishing the Mannal Training 
School was adopted by the Board of Directors of the 
University, June 6, 1879. 

" The lot was purchased and the building begun in 
August of the same year. In the November following a 
prospectus of the school was published. In June, 1880, 
the building being partially equipped, was opened for 
public inspection, and a class of boys was examined for 
admission. On September 6, 1880, the school began 
with a single class of about fifty pupils. The whole 
number enrolled during the year was sixty -seven. A 
public exhibition of drawing and shop-work was given 
June 16, 1881. 

" The second year of the school opened September 12, 
1881, and closed June 14,1882. There were two classes, 
sixty-one pupils belonging to the first year, and forty-six 
to the second year, making one hundred and seven in all. 
Of the second -year class, forty -two had attended the 
school the previous year. 

" The third year of the school will open on September 
11th, w^lien three classes will be present. 

" The large addition now in progress (June, 1882) is to 
be completed and furnished by the day set for the exam- 
ination of candidates for admission, September 8th. The 
number of pupils in the new first-year class is to be lim- 
ited to one hundred. Nearly one-half of that nuinber 
have already heen received.''^ 

The capacity of the school since the completion of the 
"addition" alluded to in the "historical note" is two 
hundred and forty students. The first class was gradu- 
ated in June, 1883 ; the second class in June, 1884. The 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 335 

establishment of this excellent school is due first to the 
energy and educational foresight of Dr. Woodward, and 
second, to the munificent money donations of three citi- 
zens of St. Louis — Mr. Edwin Harrison, Mr. Samuel Cup- 
pies, and Mr. Gottlieb Conzelman. Other citizens em- 
ulated their noble example, and the result was a sufiicient 
fund for the support of the school, whose purpose is to 
demonstrate the practicability of uniting manual and 
mental instruction in the public schools of St. Louis and 
of the country. With a single further quotation from 
the prospectus of the second great manual training 
school in the United States, on the subject of labor, we 
close this too brief notice : 

"One great object of the school is to foster a higher 
appreciation of the value and dignity of intelligent labor, 
and the worth and respectability of laboring men. A boy 
who sees nothing in manual labor but mere brute force 
despises both labor and the laborer. With the acquisi- 
tion of skill in himself comes the ability and willingness 
to recognize skill in his fellows. When once he appre- 
ciates skill in handicraft, he regards the workman with 
sympathy and respect." 

Considerable progress in manual training has been 
made in the State agricultural colleges of the country. 
In twelve of these colleges drawing and tool practice 
have been introduced. Generally the tool practice covers 
pattern-making, blacksmithing, moulding and founding, 
forging and bench-work, and machine-tool work in iron. 
The most pronounced success has been achieved at Pur- 
due University, Lafayette, Ind., under the directorship 
of Prof. Wm. F. M. Goss, who graduated from the school 
of Mechanic Arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology in 18Y9. 



336 MANUAL TRAINING. 

Manual training in connection with the public-school 
system of education has been inaugurated in Boston 
and Milford, Mass. ; New Haven, and the State ISTormal 
School, Kew Britain, Conn. ; Omaha, ~Neb. ; * Eau Claire, 
Wis. ; t Moline, Peru, and the Cook County I*^ormal 
School, Normal Park, 111. ; Montclair, K. J. ; Cleveland 
and Barnesville, Ohio ; San Francisco, Cal. ; and Balti- 
more, Md. 

On the occasion of the annual meeting of 1884 of the 
National Educational Association of the United States, 
at Madison, Wis., manual training received a very large 
share of the attention of educators. Yery creditable ex- 
hibits of various manipulations in wood, iron, and steel 
were made by the following institutions, namely, the 
Massacliusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue Univer- 
sity, the St. Louis Manual Training School, the Illinois 
Industrial University, the University of Wisconsin, and 
the Spring Garden Institute of Philadelphia. There 
were also about thirty kindergarten exhibits, and a large 
number of exhibits of specimens of drawing from publie 
schools in various parts of the country. 

Prof. Felix Adler's educational enterprise in the city 
of New York — The Workingman's School and Free Kin- 
dergarten — is unique in this that, while it is entirely a 
work of charity, it is the most com^jrehensive education- 
al institution in existence, as appears from the following 
description of its course of instruction : 

"The Workingman's School and Free Kindergarten 
form one institution. The children are admitted at the 

* In charge of Albert M. Bumann, B.S., graduate of the St. Louis 
Manual Training School, class of 1885. 

f In charge of William F. Barnes, B.S., graduate of the St. Louis 
Manual Training School, class of 1885. 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 337 

age of three to tlie kindergarten. They are graduated 
from it at six, and enter the workingman's schooL They 
remain in the school till they are thirteen or fourteen 
years of age. Thereafter those who show decided ability 
receive higher technical instruction. For the others who 
leave the school proper and are sent to work, a series of 
evening classes will be opened, in which their industrial 
and general education will be continued in various direc- 
tions. Tliis graduate course of the workingman's school 
is intended to extend up to the eighteenth or twenty-first 
year. 

" From the third year up to manhood and womanhood 
— such," says Prof. Adler, " is the scope embraced by the 
jDurposes of our institxition !" 

The following extracts from a late report of the prin- 
cipal of the school, Mr. G. Bamberger, on its " purposes," 
show that they are identical with those of the so-called 
manual training school, and also that its methods are sim- 
ilar : 

" We, therefore, have undertaken to institute a reform 
in education in the following two ways : We begin 
industrial instruction at the very earliest age possible. 
Already in our kindergarten we lay the foundation for 
the system of work instruction that is to follow. In the 
school proper, then, we see^: to bridge over the interval 
lying between the preparatory kindergarten training and 
the specialized instruction of the technical school, util- 
izing the school age itself for the development of indus- 
trial ability. This, however, is only one characteristic 
feature of our institution. The other, and the capital 
one, is, that Ave seek to combine industrial instruction 
organically with the ordinary branches of instruction, 
thus using it not only for the material purpose of creat- 



338 MANUAL TRAINING. 

ing skill, but also ideally as a factor of mind-education. 
To our knowledge, such an application of work instruc- 
tion has nowhere as yet been attempted, either abroad or 
in this country. . . . 

"In the teaching of history to these young children 
we hold it essential that the teacher should be entirely 
independent of any text-book, and able to freely handle 
the vast material at his disposal, and to draw from it, as 
from an endless storehouse, with fixed and definite pur- 
pose. We attach even greater importance to the moral 
than to the intellectual significance of history. The ben- 
efits which the understanding, the memory, and the im- 
agination derive from the study of history are not small. 
But history, considered as a realm of actions, can be made 
especially fruitful of sound influence upon the active, 
moral side of human nature. The moral judgment is 
strengthened by a knowledge of the evolution of m.an- 
kind in good and evil. The moral feelings are purified 
by abhorrence of the vices of the past, and by admira- 
tion of examples of greatness and virtue. Text -books 
are not to be discarded, but their choice is a matter 
of great difiiculty. Thus, all books in which historical 
instruction is given in the shape of printed questions and 
answers are highly objectionable. They are convenient 
bridges which lead to nothing." 

The following extract from a late report of Prof. Ad- 
ler shows the purpose of the establishment of what he 
calls the " model school " to be identical with that of the 
projectors of the St. Louis and Chicago manual training- 
schools, namely, the ultimate adoption by the public 
schools of the country of a far more rational system of 
instruction than that which at present prevails. He says, 

" It seemed to us, therefore, far more necessary, far 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 339 

more calculated to really advance the public good, that 
one model school should be erected in which the entire 
system of rational and liberal education for the children 
of the poorer class might be exhibited from beginning to 
end. AVe ventured to hope that such an example, hav- 
ing once been set, would not be without effect upon the 
common-school system at large, and that the extension 
of our work would proceed by the natural course of the 
' survival of what is fittest.' It was decided, therefore, 
that the twenty -five graduates from the kindergarten 
should be invited to remain with us, that a comj)lete 
school should be instituted, and that a teacher should be 
at once appointed to take in hand the instruction of the 
lowest class. The munificence of Mr. Joseph Seligman, 
to whose name we cannot refer without gratitude and re- 
spect, at this stage enabled us to go on with our under- 
taking, when the dearth of funds would otherwise have 
compelled us to wait, or perhaps desist altogether. His 
timely gift of ten thousand dollars was the means of 
starting the school, and on this as well as on other ac- 
counts his memory deserves to be cherished by those 
who cherish the educational interests of the people." 

The Chicago Manual Training School is the only in- 
dependent educational institution of the kind in the 
world. All the schools of this character to which refer- 
ence has been made in this chapter are departments of 
colleges or institutes of technology. The Chicago school 
is unique in another respect : it owes its origin entirely 
to laymen. Professional educatoi's labored long and ear- 
nestly to found the schools we have described, but the 
Chicago school was inspired by men unknown in the 
field of educational enterprise, advocated by a secular 
daily journal, and established by an association of mcr- 



340 MANUAL TEAINING. 

chants, manufacturers, and bankers. For many years the 
Chicago Tribune had very freely and severely criticised 
the educational methods of the public schools. Early in 
the year 1881 its editorial columns were opened to the 
author of this work, who began and continued, therein, 
the advocacy of the establishment of a manual training 
school in Chicago, as a tentative step towards the incor- 
poration in the curriculum of the public schools, of more 
practical methods of instruction. 

The editorial advocacy of the Tribune was continued 
for twelve months, articles appearing about once a week, 
without apparent effect beyond provoking a controversy 
with certain professional educators, who attacked the po- 
sitions assumed by the Tribune. But a public sentiment 
had been created on the subject, and the Commercial 
Club was destined soon to embody that sentiment in ac- 
tion. At its regular monthly meeting, March 25, 1882, 
the subject of reform in methods of education was dis- 
cussed by members of the club, and by men invited to 
be present for that purpose ; the establishment of a school 
was resolved upon, and $100,000 pledged for its support. 

The Chicago Manual Training School Association was 
incorporated April 11, 1883; the corner-stone of its 
building was laid September 24, 1883 ; and the sessions 
of the school commenced on the 4th of February, 1884, 
with a class of seventy-two students, " selected by exam- 
ination from one hundred and thirty applicants, under 
the directorship of Henry H. Belfield, A.M., Ph.D." 

The Board of Trustees consists of E. W. Blatchford, 
president; R. T. Crane, vice-president ; Marshall Field, 
treasurer ; William A. Fuller, secretary ; John Crerar, 
John W. Doane, N. K. Fairbank, Edson Keith, and George 
M. Pullman. 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 341 

The object of tlie school is stated in the articles of 
incorporation as follows : 

" Instruction and practice in the use of tools, with such 
instruction as may be deemed necessary in mathematics, 
drawing, and the English branches of a high-school course. 
The tool instruction as at present contemplated shall in- 
clude carpentry, wood-turning, pattern-making, iron chip- 
ping and filing, forge- work, brazing and soldering, the use 
of machine-shop tools, and such other instruction of a 
similar character as may be deemed advisable to add to 
the foregoing from time to time, it being the intention 
to divide the working hours of the students, as nearly 
as possible, equally between manual and mental exer- 
cises." 

From the first annual catalogue, under the title " Build- 
ing and Equipment," we extract the following : 

"The school building is beautifully located on Mich- 
igan Avenue, and contains ample accommodations, in 
rooms for study and w^ork, for several hundred pupils. 

" The equipment in the mechanical department con- 
sists mainly, at present, of tw^enty-four cabinet-makers' 
benches ; bench and lathe tools of the best quality for 
seventy-two boys; twenty-four sj)eed lathes, twelve-inch 
swing, thirty inches between centres ; a fifty-two horse- 
power Corliss engine, twelve - inch cylinder, thirty - six 
inch stroke ; two tubular boilers, forty inches in diame- 
ter, fourteen feet long. The Corliss engine, boilers, and 
lathes were made especially for the school. 

" A very valuable scientific library of nearly five hun- 
dred volumes, the property of the American Electrical 
Society, has been placed in the school. To this library, 
which is particularly rich in works pertaining to elec- 
tricity and chemistry, but which contains also cy elope- 



343 MANUAL TRAINING. 

dias, dictionaries, and other works of reference, the pupils 
have access. 

" The Blatchford Literary Society, an organization of 
pupils for improvement in composition, debate, etc., has 
lately had a handsome donation of money for the pur- 
chase of books ta be placed in their alcove in the school 
library. Several periodicals are regularly placed on the 
library tables through the generosity of the publishers. 

" By the kindness of Dr. Wm. F. Poole, librarian, pu- 
pils are able to obtain books from the Chicago Public 
Library on unusually favorable conditions." 

Thus the Chicago Manual Training School, a practical 
school, a school of instruction in things, a school after 
Bacon's " own heart," sprang from the brain of a number 
of plain, practical business men, full-armed, as Minerva 
from the brain of Jupiter. 

The Trustees were fortunate in securing Dr. Belfield 
for the directorship of the school. Before the introduc- 
tion of the new education to this country, eleven years 
ago, while Russia was struggling with the problem of 
tool practice by the laboratory method. Dr. Belfield urged 
the need of manual training in the public schools of Chi- 
cago, in which he was a teacher. He was met with de- 
rision ; but the president of the Board of Education of 
Chicago and the superintendent of schools are now advo- 
cates of the new system of training. 

In conclusion we present the following extracts from 
the inaugural address of Dr. Belfield, delivered before 
the Chicago Manual Training School Association, June 
19, 1884, as embodying the results of his experience 
and observation as to the value of the new system of 
training : 

"The distinctive feature of the manual training school 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 343 

is the education of the mind, and of the hand as the agent 
of tlie mind. The time of the pupil in school is about 
equally divided between the study of books and the study 
of things ; between the academic work on the one hand, 
and the drawing and shop-work on the other. Observe, 
I do not say between schooL-wovTi, and shop-worJc, for the 
shop is as much a school as is any other part of the es- 
tablishment. ISTor do I mean that the shop gives an edu- 
cation of the hand alone, and the class-room an education 
of the brain ; but I mean that the shop educates hand 
and hrain. That tlie hand is educated I need not stop 
to prove ; but the shop educates the mind also. 

"Had you been in the wood- working room of this 
school a few hours ago, what would you have seen? 
Twenty-four boys at work at lathes driven by a power- 
ful engine. Are any idle? '^o. Are any inattentive 
to their work ? No ; you notice the closest and most 
earnest attention, frequently approaching abstraction. 
Here, then, is the cultivation of a most important facul- 
ty of the mind, attention, the power of concentration ; 
and it is worthy of remark that this attention is not an 
enforced attention, but is cheerful, voluntary, and unre- 
mitting, 

"The young workman is engaged on a problem in 
wood, just as, a few hours earlier, he was engaged on a 
problem in algebra. He has before him a drawing made 
to a scale. The problem is this : He must gain a clear 
conception of the object represented by the drawing; he 
must imagine it ; he must select or cut a block of wood 
of the proper dimensions and of the right quality. It 
must not be too large, for he must guard against waste 
of material and waste of time. It nnist be large enouglj, 
for there must be no incompleteness about the finished 

15 



344 MANUAL TRAINING. 

product of his labor. Observe him as the work grows 
under his hand ; observe the selecting of the proper tools 
for the different parts of the process ; observe the careful 
measuring, the watchful eye upon the position of the 
chisel, the speed of the lathe, the gradual approach of 
the once rectangular block to the model which exists in 
his brain — and you must admit that this work demands 
and develops, not manual dexterity alone, but attention, 
observation, imagination, judgment, reasoning. . . . 

"My own opinion is that an hour in the shop of a 
well-conducted manual training school develops as much 
mental strength as an hour devoted to Yirgil or Legen- 
dre. . . . 

"But of this I am confident, that three years of a 
manual training school will give at least as much purely 
intellectual growth as three years of the ordinary higli 
school, because, as has been said, every school hour, wheth- 
er spent in the class-room, the drawing-room, or in the 
shop, is an hour devoted to intellectual training. And I 
am also convinced that the manual training school boy's 
comprehension of some essential branches of knowledge 
will be as far superior to that of the other boy's, as the 
realization of the grandeur and beauty of the Alps to the 
man who has seen their glories is superior to the concep- 
tion of him who has merely read of them. . . . 

" And here is the mistake of those who would degrade 
a manual training school into a manufacturing establish- 
ment. The fact should never be lost sight of for an 
instant that the product of the school should be, not tlie 
polished article of furniture, not the perfect piece of ma- 
chinery, but the polished, perfect loy. The acquisition 
of industrial skill should be the means of promoting tlie 
general education of the pupil; the education of the hand 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 345 

should be the means of more completely and more effica- 
ciously educating the brain. ... 

"Take two boys, one witli little or no education, the 
other a high -school graduate; let them enter the ma- 
chine-shop of a large manufactory, beginning, as boys 
ignorant of the technique of the trade must begin, at the 
lowest round of the ladder. It cannot be doubted that 
in three or four years the high-school graduate, if he had 
been willing to do the drudgery incident to the place, 
would have reached a higher position than the other boy, 
and would be in a fair way to succeed to some responsi- 
ble post in the establishment. Eut the graduate of the 
manual training school, by reason of his superior knowl- 
edge of machinery and materials, his skill in the use of 
tools, added to his general mental training, would begin 
at the point reached by the high - school boy after his 
years of apprenticeship. From the day of his entrance 
into the factory he would be conspicuous. "While the 
other boys would stand in the presence of the huge Titan 
of the shop lost in the wonder of ignorance, the manual 
training boy would gaze with delight on the marvel of 
mechanism, wra23j)ed in the admiration begotten of a 
thorough understanding of its construction, and strong 
in the consciousness of his mastery of it." 

Manual training was introduced in the Pennsylvania 
State College, experimentally, about three years ago. In 
1883 the course was "greatly extended," and in Sep- 
tember, 1884, it went into full operation. The course 
is substantially the same as that of the Chicago school ; 
and that it was the outgrowth of the Russian system, 
and inspired by Dr. Kunkle, is shown by the following 
extract from a circular lately issued by Prof. Louis E. 
Reber: 



346 MANUAL TRAINING. 

" Some may think that the variety of operations in the 
mechanic arts is so great as to make it impossible to give 
the student any real knowledge in the time at his dis- 
posal. It should be borne in mind, however, that this 
multiplicity of processes may be reduced to a small num- 
ber of manual operations, and the numerous tools em- 
ployed are only modifications of, or convenient substi- 
tutes for, a few tools which are in general use." 

A course in tool practice by the laboratory method has 
been made part of the curriculum of the College of the 
City of New York.* I am permitted to make an extract 
from a letter written in August last by Alfred G. Comp- 
ton. Professor of Applied Mathematics of the College of 
the City of ]^ew York, to Dr. Runkle. I print this ex- 
tract to show the exacting nature of the demands made 
upon instructors by the new education. It is as follows : 

" We are anxious to find, by the opening of our term 
in September, a competent instructor in wood-working 
for our course in mechanic arts, now in its second year. 
He should be a good and ready draughtsman, skilful in 
perspective and projections, and ready in black-board 
sketching, besides being acquainted with the use of tools, 
and apt at class-teaching. He will have at first $1000 a 
year." 

The lack of competent instructors is the most serious 
difficulty which the new education is destined to encoun- 
ter. The desire to adopt tool practice is so widespread 
among the people that educators, whether willing or oth- 

* "The first report of the Industrial Educational Association of 
New York gives a list of thirty-one schools in that city in which in- 
dustrial education is furnished." — Address of Prof. S. R. Thompson, 
Industrial Department of the National Educational Association, Sara- 
toga Springs, N. Y., July, 1885. 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 347 

erwise, are compelled to attempt to gratify the demand. 
At the same time the force of competent instructors is 
very small, and the danger is that the new system of ed- 
ucation will be brought into disrepute through the failure 
of its proper administration. 

In 1882 Mr. Paul Tulane, of Princeton, 'N. J., made a 
large donation, consisting of his realty in the city of 
!New Orleans, in aid of education in the State of Louisi- 
ana. In 1884 the University bearing its donor's name 
— Tulane — came into existence. In the deed of dona- 
tion Mr. Tulane declared that by the term education he 
meant to "foster such a course of intellectual develop- 
ment as shall be useful and of solid worth, and not be 
merely ornamental or superficial." Hence manual train- 
ing has been made a prominent feature of the insti- 
tution.* 

There is in operation at Crozet, Va., a manual training 
school called, after its founder, Mr. Samuel Miller, " The 
Miller Manual Labor School ;" but of the methods of 
training pursued at this school the author is not accu- 
rately informed. 

Girard College, dedicated nearly forty years ago, has 
adopted manual training. In response to a letter by the 
author, asking for information, Mr. W. Heyward Dray- 
ton, of Philadelphia, gives the following historical sketch 
of the introduction and progress of tool practice by the 
laboratory method in that noble institution : 

■•• John M. Orchvay, A.M., late Professor of Metallurgy and Indus- 
trial Chemistry of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been 
called to New Orleans to organize and direct the manual training 
department of the institution ; and he is assisted by Charles A. 
Heath, B.S., and Everett E. Hapgood, graduates of the School of 
Mechanic Arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 



348 ilANUAL TRAINING. 

" From time to time some of the directors recognized 
the importance of mechanical instruction, but after one 
or two attempts further efforts in this direction were 
abandoned, as those proved utter faihires. It was not 
until Dr. Eunkle, of tlie Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology, at the instance of the late Mr. William Welsh, 
then president of the Board of Directors of City Trusts, 
delivered a short address on the subject in the lecture- 
room of the Franklin Institute in this city, that any prac- 
tical mode of introducing this branch of study into the 
college was presented, 

"... Following as nearly as possible the scheme suggest- 
ed by Dr. Eunkle, and aided by many suggestions from 
him, in April, 1882, we began to instruct the larger boys 
to use tools in several kinds of metals. We were so fort- 
unate as to secure the services of a very competent and 
enthusiastic instructor, who confined his instruction mere- 
ly to teaching the use of tools, but without any pretence 
of teaching any trade. The result of two years' experi- 
ence has been so satisfactory that our boys leave the col- 
lege to go to workshops, where they secure sufficient 
wages to support them at once ; and they have, in many 
cases, been found so expert that in a few months their 
wage's have been increased. We have been so encour- 
aged by this as a substitute for apprenticing lads, which 
is fast becoming impossible, that we have just erected 
commodious workshops [Laboratories], in which, on the 
same system, but to many more boys, we propose to teach 
the use of tools in wood-work also, as we have hereto- 
fore tauffht in metals. To this time we have been com- 
pelled, from want of facilities, to confine our instruction 
to about one hundred and seventy-five boys. We expect 
next month (October, 1884) to increase the number to 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 349 

three hundred — only b.eing limited by the youth of the 
pupils, many of whom are too young to permit of their 
handling tools." 

Manual training has been made part of the curriculum 
of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Auburn, 
Ala., and the department is under the direction of a grad- 
uate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.* 

Manual training has been adopted as a branch of edu- 
cation in. the Denver (Col.) University, and the director 
of the department is a graduate of the manual training 
department of the Washington University of St. Louis, 
Mo.f 

The present year (1885) witnesses a very important 
addition to the list of manual training schools — that of 
Philadelphia. 

It is not too much to say that Mr. James MacAlister 
has revolutionized the public schools of Philadelphia in 
the short period of two years during which he has held 
the office of suj)erintendent ; and the last wave of the 
revolution reveals a fully-equipped manual training school 
as part of the public-school system of the conservative, 
grand old Quaker city. And this practical element in 
education is to be free to all public-school boys fourteen 
years of age, who can show themselves qualified to en- 
ter, as witness the following "rules" of the Philadelphia 
public schools : 

"Promotions to the Manual Training School shall be 
made at the close of the June term, from the Twelfth 

"' George H. Bryant, B.S., graduate of the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, class of 1883. 

f C. II. Wriglit, B.S., graduate of the St. Louis Manual Training 
School, class of 1885. 



350 MANUAL TRAINING. 

Grade, or any higher grade, of the Boys' Grammar, Con- 
solidated and Combined Schools ; but no boy shall be 
promoted who is under fourteen years of age. 

" It shall be the duty of the Principals of the several 
Boys' Grammar, Consolidated and Combined Schools, to 
certify to the superintendent of schools the names of all 
boys of the proper age who have finished the course of 
. study in the Twelfth Grade, or any higher grade, and are 
desirous of promotion to the Manual Training School." 

In calling the attention of the public to the establish- 
ment of a manual training school as part of the educa- 
tional system of Philadelphia, a committee of the City 
Board of Education say, under date of June 10, 1885, 

" The undersigned desire to call attention to the new 
manual training school to be opened in this city next 
September. It is intended for boys who have finished 
the Twelfth Grade, or any higher grade, of the Gram- 
mar-school course. The instruction will embrace a thor- 
ough course, so far as it goes, in English, mathematics, 
free-hand and mechanical drawing, and the fundamental 
sciences ; but in addition to these branches a carefully 
graded course of manual training will form a leading 
feature of the school. This manual training is intended 
to give the boys such a knowledge of the tools and ma- 
terials employed in the chief industrial pursuits of our 
time as shall place them in more direct and sympathetic 
relations with the great activities of the business world. 
The school will make our public education not only more 
complete and symmetrical in character than it has been 
heretofore, but it will be at the same time better adapted 
to enable the pupils to win their way in life. 'No matter 
what future a parent may have marked out for his boy — 
whether he be intended for an industrial, a mercantile, or 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 851 

a professional occupation, it is believed that sucli an edu- 
cation will be of immense advantage to him. Upon the 
industries of the world, to a much larger extent than ever 
before in its history, depend the progress, the prosperity, 
the happiness of society. To prepare boys for this con- 
dition of things will be tlie aim of this school. The en- 
tire course of instruction and training will be practical 
in the largest and best sense of that term. The culture 
it gives will include the hand as well as the head, and 
its graduates will be trained to work as well as to think. 
The course will extend over a period of three years, but 
it is so arranged that boys whose intended pursuits in 
life will not warrant spending so much time may partici- 
pate in its advantages for a shorter period before enter- 
ing upon other studies or a permanent occupation. 

" The Manual Training School has been organized in 
response to a growing sentiment respecting the character 
of public education which has been strongly manifested 
in Philadelphia, and the Board of Public Education be- 
lieve that the movement, when fully understood, will 
meet with the cordial approval of our people. Your 
careful consideration of the nature and objects which 
the school seeks to accomplish is respectfully solicited." 

This act of the school authorities of the city of Phila- 
delphia is the strongest popular endorsement the theory 
of manual training as an element of education has re- 
ceived. It commits a great city to a fair trial of the new 
education under the most favorable auspices — under the 
conduct of Mr. James MacAlister, one of the most ac- 
complished, as well as most sternly practical educators 
in the United States. 

But this is only part of a general system of manual 
training introduced throughout the whole course of in- 

^15- 



353 MANUAL TRAINING. 

struction given in the public schools of Philadelphia. 
There are kindergartens (sub - primaries) for children 
from three to six years of age, and an industrial art 
department for all the students (of both sexes) of the 
grammar schools. In this latter department the course 
of training comprises "drawing and design," "model- 
ling," " wood - carving," " carpentry and joinery," and 
" metal work." These courses, including manual train- 
ing proper, "at the top," form a comprehensive system 
of head and hand training known as the new education. 
Mr. MacAlister says, " The conviction is gradually ob- 
taining among the members of the Board of Education 
[of Philadelphia], and in the public mind, that every 
child should receive manual training ; that a complete 
education implies the training of the hand in connection 
with the training of the mind ; and that this feature 
must ultimately be incorporated into the public educa- 
tion. What is this but the realization of the principles 
which every great thinker and reformer in education 
has insisted upon, from Comenius, Locke, and Rousseau, 
to Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Spencer !" ^' 

* In a recent letter to the author, Mr. MacAlister re-enforces the 
observations quoted in the text. He says, 

" I wish you to iinderstaud that all my own convictions and action 
in connection with this movement are based upon what in my judg- 
ment should constitute an education fitted to prepare a human being 
for the social conditions of to-day, and not merely upon the industrial 
demands of our time. ... I believe there is a great future for the 
manual training movement in Philadelphia. I feel encouraged to go 
forward with the work. The great principles which underlie the 
system arew^ith me intense convictions; they mean nothing less than 
a revoliLtion in education. The great ideas of the reformers of school 
training must be realized in the public schools, or they will fail in 
accomplishiug the ends for which they were instituted and have been 
maintained." 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 353 

The rapid progress of tlie revolution in education is 
sliown by the fact that manual training in some form 
has been adopted in certain of the schools of at least 
twenty-four of the States of the American Union. 

In some of the higher educational institutions the new 
education is warmly welcomed, while in others public 
sentiment alone compels its adoption. The State Agri- 
cultural and Mechanical College of Texas has been rev- 
olutionized in this way. A member of the Faculty* 
writes as follows : 

" This institution was opened on the 4th of October, 
1876. In spite of its name, the conditions of its endow- 
ment, and its avowed object, it was founded on the plan 
of the old classical and mathematical college, and had 
no industrial features whatever till the beginning of the 
year 1880. At that time the public sentiment of the 
State had condemned so decidedly and repeatedly the 
misappropriation of the funds, and perversion of the en- 
ergies of the college under its administration as a literary 
school, that the directors found it necessary to reorgan- 
ize it by accepting the resignation of the members of 
the faculty without exception, and calling in a new corps 
of instructors. In 1880-81 a large dormitory building 
was converted into a shop [laboratory]. This was fitted 
with tools for elementary instruction in wood-working 
for the accommodation of about fifty students. A small 
metal - working plant was also erected, the wdiole being 
furnished with power from a twelve-horse-power engine. 
Since that time a brick shop [laboratory] has been pro- 
vided for the accommodation of the metal-working ma- 
chinery, which now includes the principal machines used 

* H. H. Dinwiddle, Professor of Chemistry, Cbairmau of the Faculty. 



354 MANUAL TRAINING. 

in ordinary iron- working, all driven by a twenty-horse- 
power engine," 

Massachusetts, the cradle of the American common- 
school system, is the first State to legalize by statute the 
new education, placing manual training on an equal foot- 
ing with mental training, by the following act : 

" Section I. of Chapter XLIY. of the Public Statutes, 
relating to the branches of instruction to be taught in 
public schools, is amended by striking out in the eighth 
line the words 'and hygiene,' and inserting instead the 
words ' hygiene and the elementary use of hand-tools ;' 
and in any city or town where such tools shall be intro- 
duced they shall be purchased by the school committee 
at the expense of such city or town, and loaned to such 
pupils as may be allowed to use them free of charge, 
subject to such rules and regulations, as to care and cus- 
tody, as the school committee may prescribe." * 

The Legislature of Connecticut adopted a similar stat- 
ute last year (1884). 

The Iowa Agricultural College is the first educational 
institution in the country to recognize the importance 
of instruction in the arts of home life. In this college 
domestic economy has been elevated to the dignity of a 
department called the " School of Domestic Economy," 
with the following " special faculty :" 

The President, Mrs. Emma P. Ewing, Dean. Bomesitc Economy. 
J. L. Budd ■ Horticulture and Gardening. 

A. A. Bennett CJiemistry. 

B. D. Halsted Botany. 

D. S. Fairchild Hygiene and Physiology. 

Laura M. Saunderson Elocution. 

* " Scliool Laws of Massachusetts. Supplement to the Edition of 
1883, containing the Additional Legislation to the Close of the Legis- 
lative Session of 1885; issued by the State Board of Education." 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 355 

The course of study is as follows : 



First Term. 

Domestic Economy. 

Botany. 

Physical Training. 

Household Accounts. 



FIRST YEAR. 



Second Term. 



Domestic Economy. 
Physiology and Hj^giene. 
Dress-fitting and Millinery. 

Essavs. 



SECOND YEAR. 



First Term. 

Domestic Economy. 
Chemistry. 
Duties of the Nurse. 
Designing and Free-hand Draw- 
ing. 
Landscape and Floral Gardening. 



Second Term. 
Domestic Economy. 
Home Architecture. 
Home Sanitation. 
Home Esthetics and Decorative 

Art. 
Essays and Graduating Thesis. 



Mrs. Ewing, dean of the school, thus states, clearly 
and powerfully, the reasons for its establishment and its 
purposes : 

" This school is based upon the assumption that no 
industry is more important to human happiness than that 
which makes the home ; and that a pleasant home is an 
essential element of broad culture, and one of the surest 
safeguards of morality and virtue. It was organized to 
meet the wants of pupils who desire a knowledge of the 
principles that underlie domestic economy, and the course 
of study is especially arranged to furnish women instruc- 
tion in applied house-keeping and the arts and sciences 
relating thereto — to incite them to a faithful performance 
of the every-day duties of life, and to inspire them with 
a belief in the nobleness and dignity of a true woman- 
hood. 

" No calling requires for its perfect masteiy a greater 



356 MANUAL TRAINING, 

amount of practice and theory combined than that of 
domestic economy, and students, in addition to recita- 
tions and lectures on the various topics of the course, 
receive practical training in all branche-s of house-work, 
in the purchase and care of family supplies, and in gen- 
eral household management. They are not, however, 
required to perform a greater amount of labor than is 
necessary for the desired instruction. 

" The course of study is for graduates of colleges and 
universities. It extends through two years, and leads to 
the degree of Master of Domestic Economy." " 

The Le Moyne IS'ormal Institute of Memphis, Tenn., 
is a private school, "sustained chiefly by benevolently 
disposed people at the North, for colored youth." In a 
letter to the author the principal of this school thus de- 
scribes the manual features of its curriculum : 

"Besides our Normal work proper, we give girls of 
the school two years' training in needle-work of different 
kinds, one year's instruction in choice and preparation of 
foods, with practice in an experimental kitchen, and six 
months' training in nursing or care of the sick. One 
hour a day is given to each of the foregoing subjects for 
the time indicated. 

" I am about to erect workshops for training for our 
boys in the use of wood-working tools, and in iron-work- 
ing and moulding — the course to comprise two years' 
time, two hours per day at the benches. "We shall also 
have type-setting and printing as specialties for individ- 
ual students. This work will be in operation in Janu- 
ary, 1886." t 

* Annual Catalogue of the Iowa Agricultural College, 
f A. J. Steele. 



HISTORY OP THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 357 

The professor in charge of the Mechanical Engineer- 
ing Department of the University of Michigan writes to 
the author as follows : 

"There can be no doubt in the mind of a sane man 
that this practical instruction [laboratory work] is exact- 
ly what is needed by our engineering students. We are 
assured of that fact by the expression of gratification on 
the part of our engineering alumni to find here the very 
instruction which they Avere obliged to spend two or 
three years to secure after graduating. We give our 
students work of an elementary character for a few 
weeks, or until they become accustomed to tools, when 
we put them to work on some part of a machine. If 
they spoil it, well and good — it goes into the scrap-heap ; 
if they succeed, they have the pleasure of seeing a per- 
fect machine grow up under their eyes and hand. Stu- 
dents having matured minds, as most of ours have, work 
better with a definite plan in view. We always require 
them to work from drawings. Our course in forging is 
very popular ; and it is especially useful, as it gives our 
young men that knowledge of the different kinds of iron 
and steel wliich will be of the greatest benefit to them 
as engineers." * 

The jSTational Educational Association of the United 
States, at its last meeting, at Saratoga Springs, 1^. Y. 
(1885), took a great step forward in the adoption of a 
resolution f endorsing the kindergarten. The association 
was, however, singularly illogical in its subsequent ac- 

"■ Mortimer E. Cooley, Assistant Eugiueer, U. S. Navj'. 

f "Resolved, Tliat we trust the time is near at band -when the true 
principles of tlie kindergarten will guide all elementary training, and 
when public sentiment and legislative enactment will incorporate the 
kindergarten into our public-school system." 



358 MANUAL TRAINING. 

tion, in voting to lay upon the table a resolution* recom- 
mending tlie introduction of manual training to the pub- 
lic schools. The kindergarten and manual training are 
one in principle, and should be one in practice. All 
educators will soon see this, and the National Education- 
al Association will no doubt soon place itself as heartily 
on record in support of manual training as it has already 
done in support of the kindergarten. 

Ohio ranks as the third State in the Union industrially, 
and she is making great strides in the direction of a more 
practical system of education. This is shown by the 
prominent place given to instruction in the mechanic 
arts in the State University at Columbus, by the pros- 
perity of the Case School of Applied Science, and the in- 
troduction of manual training to the public-school sys- 
tem at Cleveland, and by the establishment of the Scott 
Manual Training School at Toledo. The city of Toledo 
owes the inception of the movement in support of the 
new education to the munificence of the late Jesup W. 
Scott, who during his life conveyed to trustees for pur- 
poses of industrial education, in connection with the 
public-school system, certain valuable real estate. After 
the death of Mr. Scott, his three sons,t still residents of 
Toledo, supplemented their father's donation with a suf- 
ficient sum of money to secure the erection and com- 
plete equipment of a manual training school for three 
hundred and fifty pupils. 

The school is modelled after the schools of St. Louis 
and Chicago ; but it gives only the manual side of the 

"■ "Resolved, That we recognize the educational value of training 
the hand to skill in the use of tools, and recommend tliat provision 
be made, as far as practicable, for such training in public schools." 

f William F., Frank J., and Maurice Scott. 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 359 

curriculum, because it is conducted in connection witli 
the public High School, receiving its pupils therefrom. 
It opened in the autumn of 1884 with sixty pupils, ten 
of whom were girls. Its register now numbers two hun- 
dred, fifty of whom are girls. Its course for boys is sub- 
stantially the same as that of the Chicago school. The 
course for girls includes free-hand and mechanical draw- 
ing, designing, modelling, wood-carving, cutting, fitting, 
and making garments, and domestic science, including 
food preparation and household decoration. A distin- 
guished lawyer and citizen of Toledo,* who has been 
prominent in the work of establishing the school, says, 

" The brightest and most faithful pupils of the High 
School have eagerly availed themselves of the opportunity 
for manual instruction, and the zeal with which this new 
work is pursued has added a new charm to school life." 

Tlie school is in charge of Mr. Ralph Miller, B.S., who 
is assisted by Mr. Geo. S. Mills, B.S.f It is especially 
interesting, both as the newest educational enterprise and 
because it places the sexes on a footing of absolute equal- 
ity. Reform in education must begin with woman, for 
it is from her that man inherits his notable traits, and 
from her that he receives the earliest and most enduring 
impressions. In the arms of the mother the infant mind 
rapidly unfolds. It is in the cradle, in the nursery, and 
at the fireside that the child becomes father of the man. 
The regeneration of the race through education must, 
then, begin with the child, and be directed by the moth- 
er ; and this being the fact, the education of woman be- 
comes far more imperative than that of man. 

* Hon. A. E. Macomber. 

f Graduates of the St. Louis Manual Training School, class of 1884. 



360 MANUAL TRAINING. 

That the ancients made so little progress in morals is 
due to the fact of their neglect of the education of wom- 
an. ITeither in Egypt nor Persia was provision made 
for her mental or moral training. There were schools 
for boys in Greece, but none for girls ; and not till late 
in the Empire was there any special culture for girls in 
Rome. 

In the Middle Ages learning was confined to the relig- 
ious orders. The narrow bounds of the convent con- 
tained all there was of science and art. In the castle 
and at the tournament woman ministered to man's pride 
and vanity ; and in the peasant's hut, which was the 
abode equally of poverty and ignorance, she endured 
both mental and moral starvation. Sir "Walter Raleigh, 
Lord Bacon, Swift, Addison, Lord Chesterfield, Dr. John- 
son, and Southey treated woman with mingled contempt 
and pity, and yet they were familiar with the story of 
Lucretia, of Virginia, and of the Maid of Orleans ! But 
Shakespeare, with a sublimer genius, portrayed a Cor- 
delia, a Desdemona, an Imogen, and a Queen Catharine, 
and with rare prevision of a future better than the age 
he knew, wrote these glowing lines : 

" Falseliood and cowardice 
Are things that women highly hold in hate. " 

This is the rational age, though not less truly chival- 
rous than that of Arthur and his knights ; for, as Ruskin 
well says, "The buckling on of the knight's armor by 
his lady's hand is the type of an eternal truth — that the 
soul's armor is never well set to the heart unless a wom- 
an's hand has braced it." * 

* "Sesame and Lilies," p. 97. By John Ruskin, LL.D, New 
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1884. 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 361 

The distinguisliing features of this time are its homes 
and its schools, and the purity of the one and the effi- 
ciency of the other depends upon woman. It was re- 
served for Froebel to rescue woman from the scorn of 
preceding ages by declaring her superior fitness for the 
office of teacher — the most exalted of civil functions. 

The growth of the kindergarten has not been com- 
mensurate with its importance. Indifference and preju- 
dice have united to discourage progress. Ancient con- 
tempt of childhood — that contempt which in Persia 
excluded the boy from the presence of his father imtil 
the fifth year of his age '" — projects its sombre shadow 
down the ages. But manual training, which is the kin- 
dergarten in another form, is leading captive the imagi- 
nation of the American people, and where the imagina- 
tion leads, woman is in the van. Woman is to man 
what the poet is to the scientist, what Shakespeare was 
to l^ewton, the celestial guide. She tempts to deeds of 
heroism and self-sacrifice. She is less selfish than man, 
because a more vivid imagination inspires her with a 
deeper feeling of compassion for the misfortunes and 
follies of the race. Her intuitions are truer than those 
of man, her ideals higher, her sense of justice finer, and 
of duty stronger; and she has a better appreciation of 
the moral value of industry, remembering the tempta- 
tions of her sex to evil through habits of idleness, en- 
forced by the decrees of custom. And she is our teach- 
er, whether we will or no — our teacher from the cradlo 
to the grave — and it is through her jninistry that we arc 
destined to realize our highest mental and moral ideals. 

This sketch of the history of manual training in the 

* "Herodotus," Clio I., p. 136. 



363 MANUAL TRAINING. 

United States is doubtless incomplete. It is, however, 
sufficient to show that the subject is already one of 
absorbing interest in all parts of the country. 

Manual training in the public schools of Europe can 
scarcely be called educational, since the pupils usually 
make articles for household use. The purpose is purely 
industrial, and hence the mental culture received in the 
course of the manual exercise is the mere incident of a 
mechanical pursuit. But the making of things in the 
schools of Europe is gradually extending. 

In Denmark an annual appropriation ($2000) is made 
by the Legislature for the encouragement of slojd (hand- 
cunning) in the schools. All pupils in Danish and Swed- 
ish schools make things. 

In Germany, Dr. Erasmus Schwab published in Vien- 
na, in 1873, a book, " The Work School in the Common 
School." Rittmeister Claussen Yon Kaas, of Denmark, 
travelled through Germany and delivered lectures on 
manual training, and now there is a considerable agita- 
tion of the subject. 

In Finland all the country schools are slojd schools. 

In 1881 the Legislature of ISTorway appropriated $1250 
for the support of slojd in the schools. 

In France a law (1882) makes manual training obliga- 
tory, and a school for training teachers — " Secole !N"ormale 
Superieure de travail Manuel " — in which there are about 
fifty students. Prof. G. Solicis is the chief supporter of 
manual training in France. 

In Sweden, in 1876, there were eighty slojd schools. 
In 1877 the number had increased to one hundred ; in 
1878, to one hundred and thirty ; in 1879, to two hun- 
dred ; in 1880, to three hundred ; in 1881, to four hun- 
dred ; and in 1882, to five hundred. 



HISTORY OF THE MANUAL ELEMENT IN EDUCATION. 363 

In ISTiias, in Sweden, there is a seminary for the train- 
ing of slojd teachers.* Of this seminary Otto Salomon is 
director. In the slojd schools small articles are made for 
use in the house, kitchen, on the farm, etc. The course 
of instruction embraces one hundred models. The mate- 
rials for the first series of twenty-five models co&b about 
40 cents ; for the second series of twenty-five the cost is 
To cents ; and for the third series of fifty the cost is $3.25. 
The annual expense of the manual training in a Swedish 
country school is about ten to eleven dollars. 

The technical and mechanic art or trade schools of 
Europe, generally, whether public or private, do not 
come within the scope of this work, since their purpose 
is industrial, not educational. 

* "Four youDg women have graduated from the S15jd Teacher's 
Seminary at Nails, Sweden, and two of them are now engaged in 
teaching manual arts." — Letter from John M. Ordway, A.M., Chair 
of Applied Chemistry and Biology, and Director of Manual Training, 
Tulane University of Louisiana. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Abstract ideas regarded as of more vital importance than things, 185. 

Adam, legend of, and the stick, 157. 

Adams, Charles Francis, Jr., arraigns the schools of Massachusetts for au- 
tomatism, 201 ; declares that, in the public schools, children are re- 
garded as automatons, etc., 205. 

Adler, Prof. Felix, declaration of [in note], that manual training promotes 
rectitude, 142 ; unique educational enterprise of, in New York City, 
336 ; extracts from report of, as to purposes of the " model school," 338, 
339. 

Age of force, the, is passing away, 299. 

Age of science and art, the, has begun, 299. 

Agricola, noted for the practice of the most austere virtue, 270 ; after great 
services, was retired, 270. 

Agriculture, nearly perishes in the Middle Ages — prevalence of famines, 277. 

Agricultural colleges, manual training in twelve, of the State, 335. 

Alabama, Agricultural and Mechanical College of, adopts manual train- 
ing, 349. 

Alcibiades kept not his patriotism when he was being wronged, 255. 

Alison, his theory of the cause of the decline of Rome, 63. 

Altruism, stability of government depends upon, 135. 

America, discovery of, the crowning aot of man's emancipation from the 
gloom of the Dark Ages, 282 ; gives wings to hope, 283 ; startles the 
people of Europe from the deep sleep of a thousand years, 283 ; a 
great blow to prevailing dogmatisms, 301 ; completes the figure of tlie 
earth, rendering it susceptible of intelligent study, 301. 

America, early immigration to, consisted of Puritans and Cavaliers, Germans, 
Frenclimen, and Irishmen, 302 ; destined to become the home of an old 
civilization, 302 ; the manner in which tlic colonists of treated the natives, 
showed the Roman taint of savagery, 302 ; European social abuses ex- 
aggerated in, 317 ; the eyes of mankind rest upon, alone, with hope, 317. 

Americans, are transplanted Europeans controlled by Europca;i mental and 
moral habitudes, 317 ; will not vote away their right to vote, 318, 319. 



866 INDEX. 

Anaxagoras, his characterization of man as the wisest of animals because 
he has hands, 152. 

Ancients, reverence due them for their art triumphs, 73 ; temples of, re- 
mained long as instructors of succeeding generations, 73 ; educational 
theory of, contrasted with that of moderns, 123 ; ignorance of, on the 
subject of physiology, 153 ; speculative philosophy the only resource of, 
153 ; slow growth of, in morals, due to the fact of their neglect of the 
education of woman, 360 ; contempt of, for children, 861. 

Anossoff, a Russian general, experiments of, in the effort to produce Da- 
mascus steel, 72. 

Antwerp, Flemish silk- weavers of, flee to England upon the sacking of, 34. 

Apollo, bronze statue of, at Rhodes, 47. 

Apprentice system, the, gives skilled mechanics to England, 181. 

Apprentices better educated than the graduates of schools and colleges, 
239. 

Architecture, limit of, attained in Greece and Rome, 73. 

Aristocracy, alliance of, with the kings, 286. 

Arithmetic, automatism in teaching it in the schools of the United States, 
as shown by the Walton report, 197 ; Colonel Parker's declaration in re- 
gard to the defective methods of instruction in, 206, 207. 

Arnold, John, inventor of the chronometer, 86 ; his ingenious watch, of the 
size of twopence and weight of sixpence, 86. 

Art, its cosmopolitan character, 12; the product of a sequential series of 
steps, 73 ; the preservation of a record of each step essential to prog- 
ress, 73 ; printing makes every invention in, the heritage of all the 
ages, 282 ; triumphs due to the laborer, 290 ; ignored in educational 
systems, 320. 

Artisan, the, embodies the discoveries of science in things, 13 ; is more de- 
serving of veneration than the artist, 74 ; regarded with disdain by 
statesmen, lawyers, litterateurs, poets, and artists, 185; education of, 
is more scientific than that of merchants, lawyers, judges, and legisla- 
tors, 227; training of, is objective, relates to things, 231 ; intuitively 
shrinks from the false, and struggles to find the truth, 231 ; always in 
the advance, 242. 

Artists more highly esteemed than civil engineers, machinists, and artisans, 
185. 

Arts, the fine, not so fine as the useful, 74 ; can exist legitimately only as 
the natural outgrowth of the useful arts, 275. 

Arts, the useful, finer than the so-called fine arts — their processes more in- 
tricate, 74 ; no limit to their development except the exhaustion of the 
forces of nature, 74 ; neglect of, by all the governments of the world 
is amazing, 176 ; Plato's contempt of, 176 ; no instruction in given in 
the public schools, 181; slavery's brand of shame still upon, 190; no 



INDEX. 367 

such failure of the, as there is of justice, 227 ; the true measure of civili- 
zation, 247 ; depend upon labor, 274 ; precede the fine arts, 275 ; unknown 
in the Middle Ages, 277 ; stagnation in, is the death of civilization, 279. 

Athenians declared that the Spartans were taught to steal, and the Spar- 
tans retorted that the best Athenians were invariably thieves, 255. 

Atkinson, Edward, declares that the perfection of our almost automatic 
mechanism is achieved at the cost not only of the manual but of the 
mental development of our men, 201. 

Aurelius, Marcus, sublime moral teachings of, 138. 

Austria, Emperor of, has a suit of clothes made from the fleece in eleven 
hours, 87 ; increases her debt each year, 292. 

Authority, in the Middle Ages, chilled courage, 280. 

Automata, of the ancients — hint of modern automatic tools in, 8 ; of the 
moderns, triumphs of mechanical genius, 86. 

Automatism, of mind and body, 191; of mind promoted by the environ- 
ment of modern life, 192; promotion of, by the schools, 193; in the 
schools of Norfolk County, Mass., as shown by the Walton report, 196 ; 
as shown in the Walton report in grammar, in arithmetic, in reading, 
in penmanship, in spelling, and in composition, 197, 198, 199 ; a final 
and conclusive test of the prevalence of, in the schools, 204. 



B. 

Babylon, the hundred brazen gates of, 55 ; influence of ideas of, in full force 
in the United States down to the time of the emancipation proclamation 
of President Lincoln, 190. 

Bacon, Lord, the school he wished for, 2 ; his aphorism, 4 ; his apothegm 
on the sciences, 13; condemns the old system of education, 126; his 
opinion of the universities, 127 ; his proposal that a college be estab- 
lished for the discovery of new truth, 185 ; his proposal to bring the 
mind into accord with things, 245 ; foresees the kindergarten and the 
manual training school, 245 ; celebrated aphorism of, has bad but little 
influence upon the methods of our public schools, 319. 

Bacon, Roger, his daring prediction of mechanical wonders to be accom- 
plished, 98. 

Ballot, power of, in the United States, 318. 

Baltimore, Md., manual training in, 336. 

Bamberger, Mr. G., Principal of the Workingman's School, New York City 
— extracts from report of, on purposes of the school, 337, 338. 

Barncsvillc, 0., manual training in, 336. 

Belfield,Dr. Henry IL, Director of the Chicago Manual Training School, 340 ; 
hii5 early appreciation of the mental value of manual training, 342 ; ex- 
tracts from the inaugural address of, 342, 343, S44, 345. 

IG 



368 INDEX. 

Bell, Sir Charles, liis great discoyery of the muscular sense, 146 ; his defi- 
nition of the office of the sixth sense, 146. 

Bells, that of Pekin, China, 4*7 ; that of Moscow, 41 ; they show an inti- 
mate knowledge of the founder's art, 48. 

Bernot, M., inventor of file-cutting machine, 91. 

Bessemer, Sir Henry, his birth and early training, 162; bis appearance in 
London, a poor young man — bis first invention, 162; as young Glad- 
stone enters the Treasury, be retires an unsuccessful suitor for the just 
reward of genius and toil, 163; bis burning sense of outrage, 163; an- 
nouncement of his discovery of a new process in steel-making, 164 ; his 
declaration that be could make steel at the cost of iron received with 
increduhty, 165; his process of steel -making a complete success in 
1860, 165; compared with Mr. Gladstone, 165, 166 ; description of the 
process that revolutionized the steel manufacture, 166, \&1 • value of 
process of, 167 ; the government of England slow in honoring bim, 168 ; 
comparison between the life and services of, to man, and those of Mr. 
Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, 168, 169 ; stands for the new education, 169. 

Bhick-walnut, its natural history studied in the wood-turning laboratory, 36 ; 
its structure, growth, and uses, 3*7 ; the poet Brj'ant's great tree, 37. 

Blatchford, E. W., President of the Chicago Manual Training School Asso- 
ciation, 340. 

Blatchford Literary Society, an organization of students of the Chicago 
Manual Training School, 342. 

Blow, Miss S. E., in formulating the theory of the kindergarten, describes 
the method equally of the savage and the manual training school, 218, 
219. 

Board of Trade, of Chicago, the speculative trades in futures on, are fifteen 
times more than the sales of grain and provisions, 316. 

Body, contempt of the, by the ancients, led to contempt of manual labor, 
155. 

Book-makers, the, writing the lives of the old inventors in the temple of 
fame, 171. 

Books, the sure promise of universal culture, 283 ; the precursor of the 
common school, 283. 

Boston, the streets of, in which patriots had struggled for liberty, now 
echoed the groans of the slave, 305 ; manual training in, 336. 

Boy, the civilized, is not trained in school for the actual duties of life, 181 ; 
is taught many theories, but not required to put any of them in prac- 
tice, 181; is in danger of the penitentiary until he learns a trade or 
profession, 181, 182. 

Boys, ninety-seven in a hundred, who graduate from the public schools and 
embark in mercantile pursuits, fail, 227. 

Brain, the, its absorbing and expressing powers — dingram illustrating, 193 ; 



INDEX. 369 

the healthy education of, consists in giving to the expressing side power 
equal to that of the absorbing side, 193, 194; the functions of the ab- 
sorbing side extended, while those of the expressing side are restrict- 
ed — diagram illustrating, 194; functions of the expressing side of, in- 
creased by adding drawing and the manual arts, 195. 

Eramah, Joseph, inventor of automatic tools, 84. 

Breighton helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15. 

Bridge, the first iron, across the Severn, one hundred years old, but likely 
to last for centuries, 241. 

Bridgman, Laura, used the finger alphabet in her dreams, 150. 

Briudley, James, sketch of the life of, 172; a common laborer — a mill- 
wright's apprentice — a man of honor — an illiterate, but a genius and an 
originatorof great canal enterprises, 172-1*75 ; the engineer of tba Duke 
of Bridgewater, 173; his "castle in the air" and "river hung in the 
air," 173; his obstinacy, poverty, and poor pay for splendid services of 
which he was robbed by the duke, 174 ; his life and career typical of a 
score of biographies presented in Mr. Smiles's " Lives of the Engineers," 
175. 

Bronze, castings of, in the ruins of Egypt and Greece, 46. 

Brooklyn Bridge, illustrates the necessity of practical training for the civil 
engineer, 97. 

Brown, John, Captain, in the presence of his exultant but half -terrified 
captors, 235 ; defying the constitution, the laws, and public sentiment in 
the interest of the cause of justice, 236. 

Bruno, his fate, condemned by the Inquisition and burned as a heretic, 
178; persecution of, a link in the chain of progress, 283. 

Buckle, Henry Thomas, his testimony to the practical uses of imagination, 
38 ; his scathing arraignment of English statesmen and legislators, 
160; his declaration that the best English laws are those by which 
former laws are repealed, 187 ; his declaration in regard to the obsti- 
nacy and stupidity of English legislators, 242. 

Budget, the European, shows that the standing armies are the overshadow- 
ing feature of the situation, 286 ; the portion of, that goes to the main- 
tenance of the standing armies, 287. 

Burgos, manufactures of, destroyed by the expulsion of the Moors from 
Spain, 279. 

C. 
Ciesar preferred to Cato, whose patriotism was above question, 270 ; com- 

mentaricB of, in all the world's universities, 271. 
Caligula, his pleasure in witnessing the countenances of dying gladiators, 

138. 
Camillus honored in the early days of Rome, 270. 



370 INDEX. 

Carlyle, his apostrophe to tools, 7. 

Carpenter's laboratory, class of students at the blackboard in, discussing 
the history and nature of certain woods, 21 ; working drawings of the 
lesson put on the black-board by the instructor in, 25 ; parts of the les- 
son executed by the instructor in, 25 ; new tools introduced, and their 
care and use explained, 25 ; the students at their benches in, mak- 
ing things, as busy as bees, 26 ; a call to order and a solution of the 
main problem of the day's lesson, 26 ; a tenon too large for its mor- 
tise, 29. 

Caste, a tendency to, disclosed in all history, 248 ; illustration of, the earli- 
est — the chief of the brawny arm, 248 ; illustrations of, in savage and 
half-civilized communities, 248, 249 ; in Egypt — in India, 249 ; in the 
United States, 30*7. 

Castile, manufactures of, destroyed by the expulsion of the Moors from 
Spain, 279. 

Castle of the Middle Ages, the home of music and chivalry, 2*76. 

Cato a type of Roman persistence in the path of conquest, 260; patriotism 
and virtue of, 2*70. 

Centennial Exposition, exhibit of models of tool-practice in the Imperial 
Technical School, Moscow, Russia, at the, 325. 

Charcoal, the forests of England swept away to provide it for the smith's 
and smelter's fires, in the early time, 63. 

Charlemagne, attempt of, to reconstruct a worn-out civilization, 2*76 ; neg- 
lect of the education of the people the cause of the failure of, 276. 

Chatham, Lord, declaration of, that the American colonies had no right to 
make a nail or a horseshoe, 203. 

Chicago, comparison of, with ancient Rome, 138. 

Chicago Manual Training School, doscription of building, 1 ; its main pur- 
pose intellectual development, 3 ; theory of, 4 ; engine-room of, 14 ; en- 
gine of, doing duty as a school-master, 14 ; an epitome of, in the engine- 
room, 15 ; its purpose not to make mechanics, but men, 38 ; conditions 
of admission to, 106 ; detail of questions used in examination of candi- 
dates for first class in, 106-110; curriculum of, 110, 111; optional 
studies of. 111; blending of manual and mental instruction in, 111; 
missionary character of. 111 ; the only independent educational institu- 
tion of the kind in the world, 339 ; owes its origin entirely to laymen, 
339 ; established by an association of merchants, manufacturers, and 
bankers, 339, 340; incorporated April 11, 1883, 340; corner-stone of, 
laid September 24, 1883, 340; opened February 4, 1884, 340; officers 
and trustees of association of, 340 ; object of, mental and manual cult- 
ure, 341 ; equipment of, 341 ; library of, 341 ; Dr. Henry H. Belfield di- 
rector of, 342. 
Chicago Tribune, criticism of the methods of the public schools by the, 



INDEX. 371 

340; columns of, opened to the author, 340; effect of advocacy of man- 
ual training by the, 340. 

Child, the, becomes father of the man, in the cradle, the nursery, and at 
the fireside, 359 ; contempt of, by the ancients, 361. 

Chipping, filing, and fitting laborator_v, 88 ; course in tl:e, 88 ; the ante- 
room to the machine-tool laboratory, 88. 

Christian religion, the, its failure to save Rome, 140. 

Cicero, his doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man, 139 ; forecasts the 
doom of the Roman Republic, but has no remedy for the public ills to 
propose, 268 ; without moral courage, 269. 

Cincinnatus found at the plough, 264. 

Cities, rapid concentration of population in, 13V; plague-spots on the body 
politic, 137; dominated by selfishness, 137; statistics of increase of 
population in, 307, 308 ; the chief sources of societary disturbances, 
308. 

City, the modern, the despair of the political economist, 137 ; the centre of 
vice, 137 ; pen-picture of its vices and crimes, 140 ; picture of vice in, 
308. 

City of New York, College of, manual training in, 346; first report of the 
industrial educational association of, gives a list of thirty-one schools 
in, where industrial education is furnished {note), 346. 

Civil engineer, the modern, must be familiar with all the processes of the 
machine-tool shop, 97; his works may be amended, but never repealed, 
187; more competent than the railway president, the lawyer, the judge, 
or the legislator, 225 ; trained in things, 225. 

Civilization, progress of, depends upon progress in invention and discovery, 
65; a growth from the state of savagery, 131 ; evils of, flow from men- 
tal development wanting the element of rectitude, 132; contrast pre- 
sented by that of Italy in the fifteenth century, and that of America in 
the nineteenth, 234 ; difference between, and barbarism, 244 ; the use- 
ful arts the true measure of, 247 ; the product of education, 248 ; of 
Greece sprung from mytliology and ended in anarcliy, 254 ; languishes 
in an atmosphere of injustice, 274; the trinity upon which it rests is 
justice, the useful arts, and labor, 274 ; American, has not borne new 
social fruits, 317. 

Clark, John S., his elaborate exposition of the defects of existing educa- 
tional methods, 193, 194, 195. 

Claudius, under the favor of, Seneca amassed a vast fortune, 269. 

Clement, Joseph, great English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84 ; his 
two improvements in the slide - rest, and the medals he received for 
them, 92. 

Cleveland, 0., manual training in, 336. 

Coal, subject of production, cost, demand, and supply discussed in forging 



372 INDEX. 

laboratory, 62 ; history of application of, to useful arts, 63 ; prejudice 
against use of mineral, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, 64 ; 
smelting with mineral, successfully introduced in England in 1*766, 66. 

Coalbrookdale Iron-works, mineral coal first used at, for smelting purposes, 
65, 66. 

Columbus, in proving that the world is round, frees mankind, 282 ; sounds 
the death-knell of intellectual slavery, 282, 283. 

Comenius, the school he struggled in vain to establish, 2 ; his theory of 
learning by doing, 13; condemns the old system of education, 126; 
his definition of education, 127; foresees the kindergarten and the 
manual training school, 245. 

Commercial Club, the, founds the Chicago Manual Training School, 2 ; guar- 
antees $100,000 for its support, 3; meeting of, March 25, 1882, 340. 

Commerce, early, of America, so insignificant that in 1784 eight bales of 
cotton shipped from South Carolina were seized by the custom authori- 
ties of England on the ground that so large a quantity could not have 
been produced in the United States, 203. 

Common-school system of the United States, glaring defects of, shown by 
the Walton report, 197, 198, 199. 

Composition, automatism in teaching, in the schools of the United States, 
as shown by the Walton report, 199. 

Compton, Prof. Alfred G., on the exacting nature of the demands made 
upon instructors by the new education, 346. 

Concrete, progress can find expression only in the, 151, 152; a lie always 
hideous in the, 224. 

Connecticut, manual training in State Normal School, 336 ; legislature of, 
adopts manual training as part of the course of public instruction, 354. 

Contempt, in the Middle Ages, withered hope, 280. 

Convent, of the Middle Ages, the home of religion and of art, 276. 

Cook County Normal School, 111., manual training in, 336. 

Cooley, Lieut. Mortimer E., letter of, to the Author on effects of manual 
training in the University of Michigan, 357. 

Cordova the abode of wealth, learning, refinement, and the arts, 278. 

Corporate power, unduly promoted by reckless legislation on the subject of 
land in the United States, 314. 

Corporations, a creation of yesterday, the product of steam, 314; almost as 
indestructible as landed estates, 314; men trained from generation to 
generation to the care of, 314. 

Cort, Henry, an English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84; experi- 
ments of, with a view to the improvement of English iron, 115. 

Cotton-gin, the, trebled the value of the cotton-fields of the South, 160. 

Cotton Exchange of New York, speculative trades in futures on, thirty 
times more than the actual cotton sales, 316. 



INDEX. 373 

Crane, R. T., Vice-President of the Chicago Manual Training School Asso- 
ciation, 340. 

Cranage, tlie Brothers, inventors of the reverberatory furnace, 66. 

Crerar, John, Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School Association, 
340. 

Crusaders, their astonishment at the splendors of Constantinople, 281 ; they 
expected to meet with treachery and cruelty — they found chivalry and 
high culture, 281; they returned to Europe relieved of many illusions, 
281, 282. 

Crusades, the, pitiful and prolific of horrors as they were, shed a great 
light upon Europe, 281; brought the men of the West face to face 
with a progressive civilization, 281. 

D. 

Daedalus, invention of turning ascribed to, by the Greeks, 33. 

Damascus blades, the most signal triumph of the art of the smelter and the 
smith, V2 ; the material of which they were made, and their temper, V2 ; 
first encountered by Europeans during the Crusades, V2 ; triumphs of 
genius not less pronounced than the Athena of Phidias, 74. 

Dark Ages, the shame of, caused by the neglect of the. useful arts, 64; 
maxims of Machiavelli explain the fact of the existence of, 280 ; gloom 
of, dispelled by the discovery of America, 282. 

Darwin, Cliarles, declares that a complex train of thought cannot be car- 
ried on without the aid of words, 149; law of reversion of, in operation 
during the decay of the Roman civilization, 271. 

Da Vinci, Leonardo, took up the work of Archimedes, and the science of 
mechanics made progress, 283. 

De Caus, helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15. 

Delia Vos, M. Victor, Director of the Imperial Technical School, Moscow, 
121 ; testimony of, as to value of manual training, 121 ; author of the 
laboratory process of tool instruction, 325. 

Democratic idea, the, not new when adopted in America, 303. 

Democratic principle, in the United States Government, does not prevent 
class distinctions, 307. 

Denmark appropriates money for teaching hand-cunning in the scliools, 362. 

Denver (Col.) University, manual training in, 349. 

Dickens, Charles, his pen-picture of " Tom-all-alones " — philosophy of, 309. 

Dinwiddle, Prof. II. II., his account of the manner in which the Agricultu- 
ral and Meclianical College of Texas was revolutionized in the interest 
of manual training, 353. 

Disasters, mercantile and other, show that business is done by the " rule 
of thumb," 214. 

Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield), his tribute to the value of tlie imagination as 



874 INDEX. 

a useful quality, §8 ; his alternations of political power with Mr. Glad- 
stone — from Liberalism to Toryism an easy transition, 164; England 
heaps honors upon him while it neglects Mr. Bessemer, 16S; compari- 
son between the life and services of, to man, and those of Sir Henry 
Bessemer, 169. 

Doane, John W., Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School Associa- 
tion, 340. 

Dogmatist, the, no place for, in the modern order of things, 124. 

Domestic economy made a department of the Iowa Agricultural College, 
354 ; made part of the curriculum of the Le Moyne Normal Institute, 
356. 

Drawing, thoroughness of training in, 16; definition of, 16; sketches of 
certain geometric forms, 17; working drawings, pictorial drawings, and 
designs applied to industrial art, 18; its aesthetic element, 18; geome- 
try its basis, examples of, 18; from objects in the school laboratories, 
19 ; value of, as an educational agency, 19 ; language of, common to all 
draughtsmen — pen-picture of class in, 20 ; the first step of expression, 
208. 

Drayton, W. Heyward, historical sketch of origin of manual training in 
Girard College by, 347, 348, 349. 

Dudley, Dud, inventor of machinery for the application of mineral coal 
to smelting purposes, 64 ; sketch of career of, 64, 65 ; combinations 
against, by the charcoal iron-masters, 64, 65 ; furnaces of, destroyed by 
mobs, and their owner reduced to beggary and driven to prison, 64, 65. 

Dun, R. G., & Co., statistics of, in relation to commercial failures, 211. 

E. 

Ear not a more important organ than the hand because situated nearer the 
brain, 154. 

Eau Claire, Wis., maimal training in, 336. 

Edict of Nantes, revocation of, drove artisans to England, 34. 

Education, the philosopher's stone in, 2 ; laying the foundation of, in labor, 
3 ; the power to do some useful thing the last analysis of, 12 ; definition 
of, 12 ; confined to abstractions, in the past, 13 ; the new — claims made 
in its behalf, 105 ; universal, a modern idea, 123 ; difference in systems 
of, constitutes difference between ancient and modern civilizations, 123, 
124 ; every child entitled to receive, 124 ; certain fundamentals of, upon 
which all are agreed, 125 ; Rousseau's definition of, 125 ; begins at birth 
and continues to the end of life, 126; Froebel's definition of, 126; old 
system of, condemned by Bacon, Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and 
Froebel, 126 ; of woman more important than that of man, 128 ; develops 
innate mental qualities and forms character, 130; all, is both mental 
and moral, 133 ; any system of, that does not produce altruism is vicious, 



INDEX. 375 

136 ; first step in, to eliniinate selfishness and put rectitude in its place, 
136 ; a system of, consisting exclusively of mental exercises, promotes 
selfishness, 141 ; methods of, controlled by the Classicism of the Ke- 
naissance, 154; of the hands as well as the brain necessary, 172; the 
old, designed to make lawyers, doctors, priests, statesmen, litierateurK^ 
and poets, 1Y9 ; that is not practical, in the Age of Steel, is nothing, 179 ; 
not broad enough on the expressing side of the brain, 194 ; illustrations 
of defects of, shown by the Walton Report, 196, 197, 198, 199; in ex- 
isting systems of, the memory is cultivated while the reason is allowed 
to slumber, 200; defective methods of, result in vast mercantile and 
railway disasters, 215 ; defective morally, since the truth is to be found 
only in things, 224 ; the New England system of, very defective; but to 
it the country owes the quality of its civilization, 235; in South Caro- 
lina the monopoly of a class, 235 ; a scientific system of, would have 
averted the War of Rebellion in the United States, and kept down the 
debt of England, 237; why popular, is provided for by the State, 237; 
the sole bulwark of the State, 238; the best is the cheapest, 239; of 
New England does not produce great lawyers, great judges, or great 
legislators, 239 ; exclusively mental, stops far short of the objective 
point of true, 243 ; the last analysis of, is art, 243 ; any system of, 
which separates ideas and things, is radically defective, 244; the object 
of, is the generation of power, 244 ; the system of, which does not 
teach the application of facts to things, is unscientific, 245 ; among the 
ancients, was confined to a small class, and consisted of selfish maxims 
for the government of the many, 253 ; of the Greeks responsible for 
the destruction of Greek civilization, 256; defects of the Roman, 261; 
Roman, deified selfishness and so realized its last analysis — total de- 
pravity, 263; a false system of, wrecks the Roman civilization, 273; 
scientific, essential to the salvation of the trinity upon which civiliza- 
tion rests, 274 ; how to make it universal in Europe, 288, 289; possible 
only in Europe through the disbandment of the standing armies, 291 ; 
in Germany, has taught the people to hate standing armies, 294, 295 ; 
is causing the emigration of Germany's best citizens, 298; is the 
arch-revolutionist whose march is irresistible, 298 ; the new, will come 
in as the standing armies go out, 300; had made little progress at 
the time of the organization of civil society in America, 303; the sys- 
tem of, under which the kings and ruling classes of Europe had been 
trained to selfishness, cruelty, and injustice, put into the New England 
common schools, 303 ; sordid view of, generally held in the rural dis- 
tricts of New England, 304 ; Herbert Spencer's view of the prevailing 
methods of, 304 ; positive ill effects of the prevailing methods of, 304, 
305 ; a false system of, in the United States, led to political incongrui- 
ties of the grossest character, 305 ; complete failure of, to promote rccti- 



376 INDEX. 

tude, 305 ; defects of system of, iti the United States, shown by the ig- 
norance and crimes of legislators, 311 ; may be made universal through 
the ballot, 318; all property may be taken for, by the ballot, 318; 
American, is scant in quantity and poor in quality, 319; no radical 
change in methods of, for 3000 years, 319; a complete revolution in, 
essential to social reform, 321 ; must begin with the child and be di- 
rected by the mother, 359. 

Edward III. of England uses the smiths as military engineers at the siege 
of Berwick, '72. 

Egypt, how the castes of, arose, 249 ; progress of the civilization of, 249 ; 
civilization of, the product of education, 250 ; selfishness the basis of the 
system of education of, 250 ; ■wealth, commerce, and military and naval 
power of, 250; learning of, 251 ; luxury of, 251 ; conquered by Persia, 
251, 252; no provision in, for the mental or moral training of woman, 
360. 

Electricity, must be "harnessed" at the forge and in the shop to enable it 
to do its work, ITO. 

Elizabeth, Queen of England, use of iron by, to defeat the Spanish Armada, 
61. 

Emerson, his declaration that Napoleon was typical of the modern man, 
134; his observation that during the Crusades "the banker with his 
seven per cent, drove the earl out of his castle," 282. 

Emigrant, the poor, withdraws the support of his brawny arm from the 
fatherland, 290. 

Emigration, social questions cannot much longer be settled by, 299. 

Empire, art of mechanism greatest of modern times, 61. 

England, sketch of the history of the early iron manufacture of, 03 ; decline 
of the iron industry of, during the seventeenth century, 65 ; the people 
of, import their pots and kettles, 65 ; workshops of, originate great inven- 
tions during the period 1Y40-1840, 115; apprentices of, become learned 
men, 115; material condition of, 250 years ago — its poverty, 158, 159; 
civilization and transformation of — how accomplished, 159; studded 
with workshops, filled with automatic machines through the apprentice 
system, 181; owes to the French and Flemish immigrants her indus- 
trial arts and much of the most valuable life-blood of her modern race, 
186 ; constitution of, grew out of the feudal system, 190 ; safer to shoot 
a man than a hare in, 190; school system of, estimated by results, inde- 
scribably poor, 224 ; a scientific system of education in, would have 
averted wars and kept down the national debt of, 23*7 ; criminal laws 
of, 241 ; draws from her people a larger per capita revenue than any na- 
tion of Europe, 293 ; has nearly reached the limit of the power of her 
people to pay taxes, 293 ; land syste<n of — its terrible effect upon the 
English, Scotch, and Irish, 311. 



INDEX. 377 

English liistory, the great names iu — the names without which there would 
have been no English history, 115. 

Enterprise, in the Middle Ages, the slave of superstition and ignorance, 2*77. 

Epictetus, lofty patriotism of, 139. 

Europe, face of, and civilization of, changed during the Crusades, 282 ; 
growth of the middle class of, 282 ; the artisan became a factor in the 
social problem of, 282 ; art treasures of, destined to follow in the track 
of her fleeing population, 290 ; she may restore to productive employ- 
ments three millions of men, 298 ; she rnay place at the disposal of her 
educators seven hundred million dollars per annum, instead of seventy 
million dollars, as at present, 298; she may extinguish her national 
debts in fifty-four years, 299 ; progress in, previous to the discovery of 
America, 301, 302. 

Ewing, Mrs. Emma P., Dean of the Domestic Economy Department of the 
Iowa Agricultural College, 355 ; on the importance of the study of do- 
mestic economy, 355, 356. 

Expression, power of, quite as important as that of absorption, 208 ; sus- 
ceptible of being made clear only in things, 208. 

Eye, not a more Important organ than the hand, because it is situated nearer 
the brain, 154. 

F. 

Fairbank, N. K., Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training Scliool Associa- 
tion, 340. 

Faneuil Hall, slavery justified in, 305. 

Feudalism emasculated human energy, 277; the ruin of, set thousands of 
serfs free, 286. 

Field, Marshall, Treasurer of the Chicago Manual Training School Associa- 
tion, 340. 

File, the, older than history, dating back to the Greek mythological period, 
91 ; of the Swiss watch-makers, 91 ; dexterity of the hand- working cut- 
ter of, 91 ; invention of file-cutting machine in 1859, 91. 

Finland, all the schools of, give instruction in liand-cunning, 362. 

Fire, legend in regard to its discovery, 62. 

Foley, Thomas, on the excellence of the laboratory methods of instruction, 
217,218. 

Force, new elements of, to be discovered and applied to the needs of man, 
180. 

Forging, laboratory of, 58 ; pen-picture of a class of students in, 61 ; story 
of the origin of the Turkish Empire related by the instructor in, 61; 
the management of the forge fires in, 62 ; lesson in, on the black-board 
and at the forges, in detail, 66 ; the instructor in, at the forge, 69 ; 
questions by the students in, 69 ; the school-room converted into a 



378 INDEX. 

smithy which resounds with the clang of sledges, 69, 70; healthful ef- 
fects of the exercise — the anvil chorus, 70 ; the tests of merit in, ap- 
plied, 75 ; the instructor in, gives a lecture on the steam-hammer, 75 ; 
extent of the course in, 77. 

Founding, laboratory of, 45 ; history of the art of, 46 ; first applied to 
bronze, 46 ; lesson of the day, casting a pulley, 48 ; the process in de- 
tail, 51 ; pen-picture of the students pouring the steaming metal into 
moulds, 52. 

France, permanently weakened by the increase of her national debt, 292; 
debt, statement of — what the war with Germany cost her, 292 ; cannot 
double her debt again and make her people pay interest on it, 293 ; a 
law of, makes manual training obligatory, 362 ; supports a school for 
training teachers of manual training, 362 ; Prof. G. Solicis the chief 
supporter of manual training in, 362. 

Franklin, the famous selfish maxims of, 305. 

Froebel, the school he struggled in vain to establish, 2 ; first applies Rous- 
seau's ideas to school life, 126; his definition of education, 126; con- 
demns the old system of education, 126; a character of, 127; his dis- 
covery of the superior fitness of woman for the oflice of teacher, 127, 
128 ; foresees the manual training school, 245 ; it was reserved for him 
to rescue woman from the scorn of the ages, 361. 

Fuller, William A., Secretary of the Chicago Manual Training School Asso- 
ciation, 340. 

Fulton, Robertj an American inventor, 84. 

G. 

Galileo, persecution of, for his great discovery, 177, 178 ; persecutors of, be- 
lieved and trembled, 283. 

Gallon, Francis, declaration of, that brain without heart is insufficient to 
achieve eminence, 134; his testimony to the great value of artisan im- 
migration, and the worthless character of political refugees, 186; his 
neglect of the artisan class in his speculations on the subject of the 
science of life, 186, 187; reason of his neglect of the artisan class 
stated by Horace Mann — the influence of slavery, 188. 

George III. an expert wood-turner, 84 ; gives John Arnold five hundred 
guineas for a miniature watch, 86. 

Germanicus noted for the highest public virtue, 270 ; after great services, 
is exiled and poisoned, 270. 

Germany, Emperor of, experience of, in a needle factory, illustrative of the 
delicacy of mechanical operations, 240. 

Germany, foundation of her educational system, 291, 292 ; superior training 
of her people enabled her to humiliate France, 292 ; freedom from debt 
of, the significant feature of the European situation, 292 ; low rate of 



INDEX. 379 

taxation in, 292 ; weakness of, tlirough emigration, 293 ; the educated 
subject of, has become a thoughtful citizen, who rebels against the 
standing army, and flees from it, 293, 294 ; high value of citizenship of, 
294 ; citizenship freely abandoned, because the educated German re- 
volts at the standing army, 294 ; the military records of, show the cause 
of German emigration to be disgust of the policy of international hate, 
295 ; increase in the number of military delinquents in, is the meas- 
ure of the growth of German intelligence, 296 ; the chief power of, be- 
comes her chief weakness, 296 ; cannot recoup her losses to America 
through gains from neighboring countries, on account of the policy of 
international hate, 296, 297 ; losing the flower of her population — the 
strong — the weaklings, the paupers, the aged, and the infirm remain, 
297; is growing weaker each year, 297; agitation on the subject of 
manual training in, 362. 

Gibbon on the wealth of the Saracens in Spain, 279. 

Girard College, manual training in, 347 ; Dr. Runkle's influence in pro- 
moting the adoption of manual training in, 348. 

Gladiatorial games, atrocities of, in Rome, contrasted with the sublime pre- 
cepts of Seneca, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius, 138 ; extent of slaugh- 
ter of animals at their celebration, 138. 

Gladstone, William Ewart, political power and popularity of, 161; enters 
upon his long official career as 3'oung Henry Bessemer retires from the 
Stamp-office without his just reward, 163 ; a great orator, and a great 
financier, a talker, a maker of laws and treaties, constantly in the pub- 
lic eye, 163; in office and out of office, 163, 164; from Toryism to Lib- 
eralism — an easy transition, 164 ; compared with Sir Henry Bessemer, 
165, 166; England heaps honors upon him while she neglects Mr. Bes- 
semer, 168; comparison of the life and services of, to man, Avith those 
of Mr. Bessemer, 169 ; stands for the old system of education, 169 ; ad- 
mission of, that the great mechanics of England had no aid from the 
government, 175. 

Gold, once the king of metals, surrenders its sceptre to iron, 124. 

Goss, William F. M., his exposition of the methods of the manual training 
scliool in detail, 219, 220, 221, 222; pronounced success of tlie Manual 
Training Department of Purdue University, under directorship of, 335. 

Grammar, automatism in teaching, in the common schools of the United 
States, as shown in the Walton report, 197 ; criticism of Colonel Par- 
ker on methods of instruction in, 206. 

Great Powers of Europe all hampered by great debts, 292. 

Greece, Egypt the University of, 251 ; every intellectual Greek made a voy- 
age to Egypt, 251; the destiny of, was controlled by renegades — there 
was disloyalty in every camp, a traitor in every army, and a band of 
traitors in every besieged city, 251 ; the orators of, never refused bribes, 



380 INDEX. 

and oratory ruled in, 255 ; philosophy and education of, responsible for 
decay of the civilization of, 256 ; ruined by metaphysics and rhetoric, 
256 ; no schools in, for girls, 360. 

Greeks, were called the people of youth, 254 ; religion of, was of the sav- 
age type, patriotism narrow, superstition gross, national festivals child- 
ish, 254 ; were treacherous, cruel, and their sense of honor dull, 254 ; 
they enslaved women and robbed the bodies of the slain on the battle- 
field, 254 ; declaration of Thucydides that there was neither promise 
that could be depended upon, nor oath that struck them with fear, 255; 
in the Pantheon the highest niche was reserved for the God of Gain, 
255 ; the early, were pirates, and some sold themselves into slavery, so 
great was their lust of gold, 255 ; armies of the, bribed by Persia, 255 ; 
young, taught the arts of sophistry in the schools of rhetoric, 256 ; never 
emerged from the savage state, 256. 

Guttenberg, had he been content with an idea, there would have been no 
printing-press, 153. 

H. 

Habit, all reforms njust encounter the stolid resistance of, 191. 

Hand, it is through the, alone, that the mind impresses itself upon matter, 
141 ; the skilled, confers benefits upon man, and each act exerts a re- 
flex moral influence upon the mind of the benefactor, 141 ; and the 
mind are natural allies, 144 ; tests the speculations of the mind by the 
law of practical application, 144 ; explodes the errors of the mind, 144 ; 
finds tlie truth, 145 ; if it works falseh', publishes its own guilt in the 
false tiling it makes, 145 ; Dr. Wilson's graphic picture of the versatili- 
ty of the, 145 ; not less the guide than the agent of tlie mind, 145 ; in- 
fluences the mind through the muscular sense, 148 ; how its habit of 
labor leads to the discovery of the truth and the exposure of the false, 
149; tlie preserver of the power of speech through the endless succes- 
sion of objects it presents to the mind, 151 ; the, ceasing to labor in the 
arts, to plant and to gather, speech would degenerate into a mere itera- 
tion of the wants of savages subsisting on fruits, 151 ; the most potent 
agency in the work of civilization, 152; mobility of, multiplies its pow- 
ers in a geometrical ratio, 154; contempt of, an inheritance from the 
speculative philosophy of the Middle Ages, 155 ; the works of, com- 
prise all the visible results of civilization, 155 ; marvels wrought by the, 
155, 156; James MacAlister on the power and versatility of the [no/e], 
156; wields the mechanical powers — its works, 158; the wise counsel 
of the practical, steadies the mind, 225 ; not a nicer instrument than 
tlie mind, 240. 

Hand-work, difficulties of, illustrated by John Arnold's refusal to make a 
duplicate of liis George III. watch for $5,000, 86. 

Hargrettves, James, inventor of the " spinning-jenny," 84. 



INDEX. 381 

Herbert, the famous selfish maxim of, 305. 

Herodotus, his description of the hundred brazen gates of Babylon, 55 ; his 
contempt for the artisan, 56. 

Hero, of Alexandria, the inventor of the steam-engine, 14. 

Hero, the, is an honest man — that's all, 233. 

Heroes, the thin ranks of, constitute the measure of the poverty of the sys- 
tems of education that have prevailed among mankind, 234 ; are nor- 
mally developed men who honor the truth everywhere, 234; the fact 
that they are honored after death evidence of progress, 234. 

Heroism rendered grand by contrast with the debased standards of public 
judgment, 233. 

Herophilus opens the way to an intelligent study of the mind, 153. 

Hippocrates opens the way to an intelligent study of the mind, 153. 

Honesty, only another name for heroism, 233 ; scientific education will make 
it universal, 233. 

Holtzapffels, speculation of, as to the origin of the invention of the lathe, 33. 

Hood, Tom, his song of the shirt, 87. 

Huntsman, Benjamin, an English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84; 
sketch of the career of, 116; his invention of cast-steel, and its effect 
upon the Sheffield cutlery market, 116; how his secret was stolen, 117; 
declines a membership of the Royal Society, 117; how resplendent his 
name is now, 171. 

I. 

Ideas are mere vain speculations till embodied in things, 243 ; and things 
are indissolubly connected, 244. 

Ignorance, illustration of, in the opposition of a Roman Emperor to the use 
of improved machinery, 178; reverences the past, never doubts, is sus- 
picious, an enemy of all progress, 179; in the schools of Norfolk County, 
Mass., 197. 

Illinois Penitentiary, statistics of show that four out of five of the inmates 
of have no handicraft, 182. 

Imagination, Buckle's tribute to the, 38 ; Disraeli on Sir Robert Peel's want 
of, 38 ; Disraeli's career an illustration of the value of, 39 ; the discovery 
of America appealed powerfully to the, 283 ; blazes the path to glorious 
achievements, 283. 

Imperial Technical School, Moscow, manual training adopted as part of 
curriculum of the, in 1868, 325; sketch of the history of manual train- 
ing in, by Director Delia Vos, 325, 326, 327. 

India, how the castes of, arose, 249. 

Injustice, civilization languishes in an atmosphere of, 274. 

Inquisition, the, its persecution of Galileo, 177, 178. 

Instructors, lack of competent, in the new education, 346, 347. 

Intelligence, the basis of morality, 113. 



383 INDEX. 

Inventions, a growtli, 14; each step of constitutes a link in the chain of 
progress, 187 ; contain the germs of imperishable truth, 243. 

Inventor, the, produces a machine that will make a thousand things in the 
time required by the hand-worker to make one, 86 ; helps on the cause 
of progress, 160; rules the world, 161 ; his works are never repealed, 
187 ; is always in the advance, 242. 

Inventive genius, to the, mankind owes more than to the philosophers, lif- 
teratews, professors, and statesmen of all time, 84. 

Iowa, Agricultural College of, makes domestic economy a part of its curri- 
culum, 354 ; faculty and course of study in the department of domestic 
economy of, 354, 355. 

Iron, Locke's famous apothegm on the value of, 45 ; the most potent in- 
strument of power, 61 ; use of by Queen Elizabeth to defeat the Spanish 
Armada, 61 ; the equivalent of civilization, 62 ; is king, and the smelter 
and smith are his chief ministers, 62 ; to make a ton of, required hun- 
dreds of cords of wood before the introduction of "pit" coal for smelt- 
ing purposes, 63 ; the foundation of every useful art, 81. 

Italy, government of, during the Middle Ages, consisted of a menace and a 
sneer, 280. 

J. 

Jacobson, Col. Augustus, on the demand for a more comprehensive system 
of education, 180; on the proper equipment of the boy upon leaving 
school, 209. 

Jerusalem, when conquered, its smiths and other craftsmen were carried 
away as captives by the Babylonians, 70. 

Jews, learning of, exerted an ameliorating influence upon the darkness of 
the Middle Ages, 281. 

Judges, training of, is exclusively sul)jective, 230; rendered selfish by sub- 
jective processes of thought, 231 ; venerate the past, 242. 

Justice assumes the place of selfishness in the mind of the hero, 233 ; cause 
of the failure of, 242. 

K. 

Keith, Edson, Trustee of Chicago Manual Training School Association, 340. 

Kindergarten, the, father of the manual training school, 5 ; fills a place un- 
occupied until the time of Froebel, 126 ; educational principles of, sus- 
ceptible of universal application, 126; analysis of, 128; leads logically 
to the manual training school, 129 ; method of, is scientific, 207 ; method 
of, is the expression of ideas in things, 245 ; realizes the dream of Bacon, 
Comenius, and Pestalozzi, 245 ; exhibits of work of, at the meeting of the 
National Educational Association in 1884, 336 ; endorsed by the National 
Educational Association, 357 ; the growth of, prevented by prejudice and 
indifference, 361. 

Kings, alliance of, with the aristocracy, 2S6. 



INDEX. 383 

L. 

Labor class, the real flower of a population, 289 ; all other classeg depend 
upon the, 290 ; a drain upon the, is a drain upon the most vital resource 
of the State, 290 ; where the flower of gathers, wealth most abounds, 290. 

Labor, manual, scorn of, among the ancients, 56 ; its slow recovery of inde- 
pendence, its destined dignity through scientific and art culture, 57 ; re- 
pugnance to, has multiplied dishonest practices, 155 ; respect for, would 
be increased by the adoption in the public schools of a comprehensive 
system of mechanical training, 182 ; cause of the scorn of — the slavery 
of the laborer, 188 ; of to-day alone maintains the value of property, 
252 ; of men cheaper than that of cattle, in Rome, 262 ; the useful arts 
depend upon, 274 ; the foundation of national prosperity, 289 ; essential 
to tiiumplis in literature, music, and the fine arts, 289 ; not gold and 
silver, is the source of wealth, 290 ; draws to itself the art treasures of 
the world, 290, 291 ; contempt of, inculcated by existing educational sys- 
tems, 320. 

Laborer, the, how he has been degraded through slavery, 10 ; contempt of, 
ingrained in the public mind — so much so that the labor classes oppose 
the introduction of tool practice to the public schools, 177 ; contempt of, 
leads inevitably to social disintegration, 247 ; the battles of antiquity 
were contests for the possession of, 253; reduced to slavery in Rome, 
2G1 ; a thing to be spurned in Rome, 262; the useful arts decline if he 
is degraded, 274 ; the useful arts advance if he is honored, 274 ; the 
standing armies of Europe have cost him all his noble ambitions, 291; 
surplus of, goes to the tax-gatherer, 291 ; forced to sacrifice his desire 
for education, his love of the beautiful, of dignity, and of a home adorn- 
ed by art, 291. 

Laborers thrown into the arena in Rome to be scrambled for by free citi- 
zens, 265. 

Landed estates, effect of concentration of, in a few hands, 314; vast, con- 
ferred upon a few corporations in the United States — double the area 
of that owned by the lords of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 315. 

Language, thought impossible without, 150; changes in, arise out of new 
discoveries in science and new inventions in art, 151 ; stagnates when 
the State ceases to advance, 151 ; invention of, 248 ; when nations shall 
dwell together in unity there will be but one, 295 [«o/e]. 

Lawyers more highly esteemed than civil engineers, machinists, and arti- 
sans, 185; training of, is exclusively subjective, 230; rendered selfish 
by subjective processes of thought, 231 ; look for precedents in an age 
whose civilization perished with its language, 242. 

Layard, discoveries of, in the ruins of Nineveh, 46. 

Legislation, restrictive, in England, to prevent the conversion of timber into 



384 INDEX. 

charcoal for smelting purposes, 63 ; the best, in England, is that by 
which former statutes were repealed, 226 ; of the United States no bet- 
ter than that of England, 226 ; cause of failure of, 242 ; reckless, in the 
United States, on the subject of the public domain, 313 ; of the States 
of the Union vicious and corrupt, 316. 

Legislators, not the authors of English progress, 159 ; Buckle's scathing 
arraignment of, 160 ; wiser in the statutes they repeal than in those they 
enact, 226, 22Y ; training of, is exclusively subjective, 230 ; rendered self- 
ish by subjective processes of thought, 231 ; become selfish, and vener- 
ate the past, 242 ; refuse to grant reforms until awed into submission, 
242. 

Le Moyne Xormal Institute, manual training and domestic economy in, 356. 

Life Insurance, ethical aspect of, 214. 

Literature, full of maxims in honor of selfishness, 134; polite, must rest 
upon a basis of general culture, or it is valueless, 2*75. 

Litterateurs more highly esteemed than civil engineers, machinists, and 
artisans, 185. 

Livy characterizes Valerius as the first man of his time, 264 ; deplores the 
decay of virtue, but is silent on the subject of the infamy of slavery, and 
on the shame of degrading labor, 268. 

Lloyd, Henry D., his history of the land system of the United States — sylla- 
bus of, 811; opening paragraphs of the history of the land grants of 
the United States by, 312, 313 ; declaration of, that we must hereafter 
find freedom in the society of the good, 320. 

Locke, the school he dreamed of, 2 ; famous apothegm of, on iron, 45. 

Locomotives, no such failure of, as there is of legislation, 227. 

Lombardy, five famines in, during the first half of the thirteenth century, 
277. 

Louis XVI. an expert locksmith, 34. 

Lubbock, Sir John, on the skill of the savage, 216. 

Lucan, his gospel of universal love, 139. 

Lucretia, political effects of the tragic fate of, 260. 

Luther, the reformation of, opened tlie way to the last analysis of dissent 
in America, 303. 

M. 

MacAlister, James, declaration of, that there has been but little change in 
tlie ideas that have controlled our methods of education in four hun- 
dred years, 154; his graphic description of the power and versatility 
of the hand [?io^e], 156; observation of, tliat a skilled hand, to the ma- 
jority of men, is quite as important as a well-filled head, 208 ; has revo- 
lutionized the public schools of Philadelphia in two years, 349 ; one of 
the most accomplished as well as sternly practical educators in the 
United States, 351 ; opinion of, that every child should receive manual 



INDEX. 385 

training, 35'2 ; opinion of, that the great principles whicli uiideiiio tlie 
system mean notliing less than a revolution in education [?to?e], 352. 

Machines, automatic, nails, screws, pins, and needles flying from the fingers 
of, by the thousand million, 82 ; more powerful to be constructed in the 
future, ISO. 

Machiavelli, philosophy formulated by, 280; political maxims of, not in- 
vented by him, 280; maxims of, atrocious character of, 280, 281 ; max- 
ims of, promote barbarism, 281. 

Machine-tool laboratory, the students of, enter upon a most important inquiry, 
82 ; the study of minute and ponderous tools in, through which the great 
enterprises of modern times are conducted, 83 ; delicacy of the processes 
of, 91 ; the poverty of words as compared with things asserted in, with 
unexampled force, 91 ; silence of, how eloquent, 91, 92 ; a screw-engine 
lathe taken to pieces in the presence of the students of, 92 ; improve- 
ments in the lathe explained by instructor in, 92; fundamental and 
auxiliary tools of, explained as introduced by instructor in, 93 ; course 
of training in, orderly, 93 ; students work from their own drawings in, 
94 ; why skill is required to handle steam-driven tools of the, 94 ; as- 
pect of the, when in repose, 97; aspect of the, when steam is on, 98; 
pen-picture of students of, 99 ; modesty of students of, 99 ; students of, 
at work on graduating projects in, 100; variety of subjects of, graduat- 
ing projects in, 100; dream of instructor in, 100-103 ; completing grad- 
uating projects in, 103, 104. 

Machine-tool shop, the modern, an aggregation of hand-tools made auto- 
matic, and driven by steam, 8 ; revolution in the useful arts caused by 
the, is ; what this creation of modern times, a huge automaton with 
steam coursing through its veins, does, 78-81 ; its arms, its hands, its 
brain, its food, and its products, 81 ; lines of modern development con- 
verge in the, 81 ; human pursuits widely diversified by, 82. 

Macomber, A. E., on the Toledo Manual Training School, 359. 

Madrid, people of, threatened with starvation, 279; lost half its population 
in the seventeenth century, 279. 

Man, the two states of — with and without tools — contrasted, 7 ; the gulf be- 
tween the civilized and savage, spanned by the seven hand-tools, 8 ; 
the wisest of animals because he has hands, 152 ; the most powerful of 
animals because he has hands, 157 ; powers of, increased by steam, IGl ; 
the most highly civilized, familiar with all the arts, 274 ; in the Middle 
Ages, shrunk into a state of moral cowardice and intellectual lethargy, 280. 

Mann, Horace, cause of the degradation of labor stated by, 5 ; reason for 
the scorn of labor given by, in. exfenso, 188. 

Manual training, promotes rectitude, 132; promotes altruism because it is 
objective, 141 ; its effects relate to the human race, 141 ; Prof. Felix 
Adler in support of its tendency to promote rectitude, 112; idea of, 



386 INDEX. 

contained in the declaration of the majesty of the hand by the Ionic 
philosopher of the fourth century B.C., 153 ; exactly what it is, 200; is 
like the savage method — natural — and hence efficient, 218 ; required to 
render mental operations more true, 225 ; possible in Europe only 
through the disbandment of the standing armies, 291 ; in all the tech- 
nical schools of Russia, 32*7 ; theory of, by Dr. John D. Runkle, 332 ; in 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 327, 328 ; in the St. Louis 
school, 332, 333; in twelve of the State agricultural colleges, 335; in 
Purdue University, 335 ; in Boston and Milford, Mass., New Haven, and- 
the State Normal School, Conn., Omaha, Neb., Eau Claire, Wis., Moline, 
Peru, and the Cook County Normal School, Normal Park, 111., Montclair, 
N. J., Cleveland and Barnesvilie, 0., San Francisco, Cal., and Baltimore, 
Md., 336 ; exhibits of work of, at the meeting of the National Educa- 
tional Association in 1884,336; in Prof. Felix Adler's Workingman's 
School, 336 ; in Chicago, 339 ; Dr. Belfield on the mental effect of, 844; 
in the Pennsylvania State College, 345 ; Prof. Louis E. Reber in support 
of, 345, 346; in the College of the City of New York, 346 ; in thirtj'-one 
schools in the city of New York [?io/e], 346 ; in the Tulane University, 
347 ; in the Miller School at Crozet, Va., 347 ; in Girard College, 347 ; 
in the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College, 349 ; in the Den- 
ver (Col.) University, 349; in the public schools of Philadelphia, 351 ; 
in twenty-four of the States of the Union, 353 ; in the Agricultural and 
Mechanical College of Texas, 353 ; adopted as part of the course of 
public instruction by Massachusetts and Connecticut, 354; in the Le 
Moyne Normal Institute, 356 ; in the University of Michigan, 357; laid 
on the table by the National Educational Association, 357, 358; in the 
State University, Cleveland, and Toledo, 0., 358 ; is leading captive the 
imagination of the American people, 361 ; the purpose of, in the schools 
of Europe is purely industrial, 362. 
Manual training school the child of the kindergarten, 5 ; destined to unite 
science and art, 5 ; its highest text-books tools, 7 ; must be made part 
of the public system of education, 112; gain of the pupil of, over the 
pupil of the school of the old regime, 122 ; pupil of, constructs a ma- 
chine, breathes into it the breatli of life, and with it moves mountains, 
201 ; methods of, twenty times more valuable than the unscientific 
methods of the trade-shop, 219 ; pupil of, is an investigator, his reason- 
ing opens new fields of thought with every stroke of the chisel, 220; 
pupil of, gets as much again intellectual benefit from the laboratory as 
he would if the laboratory equivalent in time were given to book-study, 
221 ; laboratory exercises of, a great strain upon the mental constitu- 
tion, and hence highly educational, 222 ; pupils of, love it — an incident, 
223 ; method of the, is the expression of ideas in things, 245 ; realizes 
the idea of Bacon, Comenius, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, 245. 



INDEX. 387 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, its models of mechanical manipula- 
tion presented by the Emperor of Russia, 66 ; first institution of learn- 
ing iu the United States to adopt manual training, S2'7 ; manual training 
adopted by, in 1876, 328; resolution of thanks for a series of models, 
presented by the Emperor of Russia, adopted by, 328, 329. 

Massachusetts, legislature of, adopts manual training as part of the public 
school coarse of, 354. 

Maudslay, Henrj', his improvement of the lathe made it the king of the 
machine-tool shop, 33 ; without his slide-rest Watt's engine could not 
have been made, 35 ; through his slide-rest alone the mechanic is able 
to make two things exactly alike, 92; slide-rest of, an automaton truer 
than the human eye, more cunning than the human hand, 200, 201. 

Maudsley, Dr. Henry, on the contribution of the muscular sense to mental 
operations, 147 ; on the impossibility of thinking without physical ex- 
pression, 149. 

Mechanic, the, who makes a machine that multiplies products is in the 
front rank of the civilizers of the race, 160 ; prospects of the skilled, in 
life, 170 ; did more to hasten the world's progress from 1740 to 1840 
than all the statesmen of previous ages, 171; splendid career wliich 
this age opens to the educated, 182 ; tremendous power wielded by, 183 ; 
has wrought an industrial revolution, 185 ; works of, reflect honor upon, 
187; stands the test of scrutiny better than the merchant, 225; trained 
in things, 225. 

Mechanics, skilled, the use of automatic tools increases rather than dimin- 
ishes the demand for, 94 ; of the early time had none of the advantages 
of the manual training school, 172; their sufferings and misfortunes, 
172 ; no such failure of, as there is of merchants, 227 ; thoroughness of 
training of, 239. 

Mediaeval period, the speculative philosophy of, still projects its baleful in- 
fluence over our institutions of learning, 185; graphic picture of society 
in, by Winwood Reade, 276, 277 ; the art of war only flourished in, 277 ; 
precarious condition of the serfs iu — fate of — to be killed in battle or 
die of starvation, 277 ; causes of the moral and intellectual darkness of 
the, 277, 278 ; causes of the moral and intellectual torpor of the people 
of, 280 ; conferred upon man two great blessings, and left a legacy of 
evil, 285 ; degradation of woman in the, 360. 

Memory cultivated iu existing systems of education at the expense of the 
reason, 200. 

Men sold for sixpence apiece in Asia^ 265. 

Menander, lofty moral precepts of, 139. 

Mental acquirement, a, is a theorem — something to be proved, 144. 

Mental development, law of, 131. 

Mental training, exclusively, does not produce a syninK'tricul character, 244. 



388 INDEX, 

Merchants, percentage of failure of, in Chicago from 1870 to 1881, 211 ; 
three per cent, of, only, succeed, 211 ; ninety-seven per cent, of, go to the 
wall, 212; cost of failures of, borne by the public, 212; ninety-seven 
per cent, of, mistake their avocation, 212 ; failure of, made too easy, 213 ; 
honor of, in France [no<e], 213 ; ninety-seven in one hundred fail, 225 ; 
cause of failures of, 229; selfishness of — do not seek for justice, or 
to find truth, 230 ; who compromise with their creditors, and subse- 
quently accumulate fortunes, rarely repay the forgiven debt, 230 ; cause 
of failure of, 242. 

Mercury, bronze statue of, at the Museum of Naples, 47. 

Michigan, University of, manual training in, as described by Instructor 
Lieut. M. E. Cooley, 357. 

Microscope, the work of the hand, 156. 

Milford, Mass., manual training in, 336. 

Miller Manual Training School, the, of Crozet, Va., 347. 

Mind, the, mental laws of, 132, 133 ; moral laws of, 133 ; and the hand are 
natural allies, 144; indulges in false logic without instant detection, 
145 ; the hand its moral rudder, its balance-wheel, 145 ; influenced by 
the hand through the muscular sense, 148 ; steadied by the wise coun- 
sel of the practical hand, 225 ; steadied and balanced by the study of 
things, 225 ; devises a watch, and the hand makes it, 240 ; fails when it 
attempts to execute its devices, 240 ; succeeds when the hand executes 
its plans, but fails in merchandising, law, and justice, 240 ; should not 
be stored with facts unless they are to be applied to things, 245 ; how 
it began to assert its empire over matter, 249. 

Moline, 111., manual training in, 336. 

Montclair, N. J., manual training in, 336. 

Moors, the, in Spain in the Middle Ages constituted a glowing exception to 
the general prevalence of superstition and ignorance, 278 ; skilled in all 
the arts, 278. 

Morality, springs from intelligence, 113 ; is not a mere sentiment, a barren 
ideality, 142 ; of Christ and Paul, 142 ; is a vital principle whose ex- 
emplification consists in doing justice, 142 ; cannot be acquired by mem- 
orizing a series of maxims, 143 ; of a community is in the ratio of its 
intelligence, 238. 

Morrissey, John, his brief autobiography, 308, 309. 

Mother, the, in the arms of, the infant mind rapidly unfolds, 359. 

Moulding, the oldest of human discoveries, 46. 

Murray, Matt, inventor of flax machinery, 84. 

Muscular sense, the, its discovery by Sir Charles Bell, 146 ; its power over 
the movements of the frame — walking, etc., 146; Dr. Henry Maudsley 
on the, 147 ; actions of essential elements in mental operations, 147 ; 
sharpened to marvellous fineness by constant use, 148 ; if trained in the 



INDEX. 389 

direction of truth, it will react in the direction of rectitude, on the 

mind, 148, 149. 
Mushet, David, an English inventor and author, 84 ; his discovery of the 

value of black baud iron-stone, 117; his papers on iron and steel, 117; 

sprung from the labor class, 11 V. 
Mytholog}-, the highest place in its Pantheon given to Vulcan, the God of 

Fire, 70. 

N. 

Napoleon, the incarnation of selfishness, 134, 135; the infamous, plundered 
the conquered capitals of Europe, 290. 

Nasmyth, James, invented the steam-hammer in 1837, and applied the 
principle of it to the pile-driver in 1845, 76. 

Nation, the, that degrades labor is ripe for destruction, 253 ; that loses its 
population by emigration is in its decadence, 290. 

National debts of Europe, amount of, thirty years ago, 286 ; doubled since 
1850, 286; cause of the rapid increase of, 286; represent a series of 
colossal crimes against the people, 287 ; with relation to them, the peo- 
ple are divided into two classes — one class owns them, the other class 
pays interest on them, 287 ; in one class they are a vested right, in the 
other a vested wrong, 287 ; how they can be paid, and education pro- 
moted at the same time, 288 ; can be paid only by disbanding the stand- 
ing armies, 291 ; will reduce their governments to bankruptcy unless 
standing armies are disbanded, 292. 

National Educational Association, manual training exhibits at, 1884, meet- 
ing of, 336 ; meeting of 1885 adopts a resolution endorsing the kinder- 
garten, 357; illogical action of, in laying upon the table a resolution 
endorsing manual training, 357, 358. 

Nations, the rise, progress, and decay of, 252, 253 ; sink as the column of 
debt rises, 293. 

Neilson, James B., inventor of the hot-blast, 84 ; revolutionizes the processes 
of iron n)anufacture, 117; sprang from the labor class, and is made a 
member of the Royal Society, 117. 

Newcomen helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15. 

New England, system of education of, moulded the character of the civili- 
zation of the United States, 235 ; difference between the civilization of, 
and that of South Carolina, measured by the difference in their re- 
spective educational systems, 235 ; educational system of, is unscien- 
tific, 239. 

New Haven, Conn., manual training in, 336. 

Nineveh, bronze castings recovered from the ruins of, 46. 

Nobility above price in the elcventii century, for sale in the thirteenth, and 
soon afterwards offered as a gift, 282. 

Norway appropriates money for tcacliing hand-cunning in the schools, 362. 



390 INDEX. 



0. 



Object teaching, example of, 4 ; the corner-stone of the kindergarten and 
the manual training school, 129 ; an analysis of, with examples, 200. 

Ohio, high rank of, industrially, 358 ; making great strides towards a morf; 
practical system of education, 358 ; State University of, manual training 
in, 358 ; prosperity of the Case School of Applied Science in, 358; man- 
ual training schools of Cleveland and Toledo, in, 358. 

Omaha^Neb., manual training in, 336. 

P. 

Palissy, Bernard, sketch of his career, 231, 232, 233; burns the furniture 
of his house in the cause of art, 232 ; is cast into prison for heresy — 
his defiance of King Henry III., 232 ; dies in the Bastile, 233 ; a hero 
neither to his family, his friends, nor his king, 233 ; was right, and his 
devotion to art rendered him immortal, 233, 234 ; struggle of, over the 
furnace in the cause of art, was mentally and morally normal, while the 
opposition he encountered was abnormal, 234 ; mind of, was developed 
normally, while the minds of the millions of men who permitted him to 
die unfriended were developed abnormally, 234 ; willing to starve for 
his art, and ready to die for his faith, 234. 

Papin helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15. 

Paris Exposition, exhibit of models of tool practice in the Imperial Techni- 
cal School, Moscow, Russia, at the, 325. 

Parker, Col. Francis W., declares that the application of science to meth- 
ods of instruction would produce a radical change in all school work, 
205 ; his forcible exposition of the defects of prevailing methods of 
instruction, 205, 206, 207; asserts that teachers are faithful, honest, 
and earnest, but ignorant of the history and science of education, 
20*7. 

Patriotism can be indulged with good reason only in the United States, 317. 

Penmanship, automatism in teaching, in tlie schools of the United States, 
as shown by the Walton report, 198. 

Pennsylvania State College, manual training in the, 345. 

Pennsylvania State Prison, statistics — five-sixths of the inmates of, had at- 
tended public schools, and the same number were without trades, 182. 

Pericles boasted that he could not be bribed, but robbed all Greece to em- 
bellish Athens, and was convicted of peculation and fined, 255. 

Persia, no provision in, for either the mental or moral training of woman, 
360 ; the boy in, excluded from the presence of his father till the fifth 
year, 361. 

Peru, 111., manual training in, 336. 

Pcstalozzi, the school he struggled in vain to establish, 2 ; his definition of 



INDEX. 391 

education, 12; his condemnation of tlie old system of education, 126; 
foresaw tlie Ivindergarten and the manual training school, 245. 

Phidias familiar with the turning lathe, 33. 

Philadelphia, manual training made part of the public school system of, 
349; rules of the public schools of, 349, 350; report of a committee 
of the Board of Education of, in regard to the introduction of manual 
training to the school system of, 350, 351 ; comprehensiveness of the 
course— hand -training introduced into the public schools of, for both 
sexes, 352. 

Philosophers, the, little time to speculate with, 180. 

Philosophy established on. a scientific basis — the study of natural phe- 
nomena, 153 ; of the Greeks scorned both science and art, 257. 

Physical development, law of, 131. 

Pile-driver, the steam-hammer principle applied to the, 76; power of 
the, 76. 

Pilgrims, the product of the progress of all the ages, 302. 

Pine, in the forest and in lumber, 21 ; description of the tree by the son of 
a lumberman, 21; uses of, commerce in, supply of, 22; sources of in- 
formation of students in regard to — newspapers and encyclopedias, 25. 

Plato, his theory of the divine origin of caste, 123 ; blinded by half-truths, 
124; how he was controlled by his environment, 124 ; his theory of the 
importance of early training, 125 ; his contempt for the useful arts, 176, 
1 77 ; regarded the soul's residence in the body as an evil, 256 ; opinion 
of, that the majority is always dull and always wrong, 276. 

Pliny, affection of, for his slaves, 139. 

Plutarch, sublime moral teachings of, 138 ; oa the death of his daughter, 
139. 

Poets, the, little time to sentimentalize with, 180; more highly esteemed 
than civil engineers, machinists, and artisans, 185, 

Poole, Dr. William R, courtesy of, to the students of the Chicago Manual 
Training School, 342, 

Power, generation of, tiie object of education, 244 ; to generate and store 
up either mental or physical, not to be exerted, is a waste of energv, 245. 

Printing, the art of, essential to progress in the useful arts, 73 ; not so nec- 
essary to progress in the so-called fine arts, 73 ; removes the seal from 
the lips of learning, 282 ; makes every discovery in science and every 
invention in art the heritage of all the ages, 282 ; the invention of, par- 
alyzed authority, 283. 

Progress, if Guttcnberg had rested content with an idea, there would have 
been no printing-press, 152 ; if Watt, Stephenson, and Fulton had stopped 
at words, there would have been neither railways nor steamships, 152; 
dates from the beginning of the seventeenth century, 153; slow until 
witliin one hundred years, 153 ; due not to the men who make laws, but 

17 



393 INDEX. 

to the men who make things, 160; of the world towards a higher ap- 
preciation of the value of the useful arts, 1*72; of moral ideas shown 
by the honors lavished upon the memory of heroes, 234 ; can find ex- 
pression only in things, 243. 

Property, no security for, in a community devoid of education, 237 ; intelli- 
gence alone confers a sacred character upon, 23Y ; may be protected by 
a hired soldiery, or by public sentiment enlightened by education, 238 ; 
the main purpose of governments is to protect, but nearly all the gov- 
ernments of history have been destroyed in the effort to fulfil this func- 
tion of their existence, 238 ; in slaves, failure of the United States to 
protect, 238 ; rights of, in English land, about to be disturbed, 238 ; not 
sacred unless honestly acquired and honestly held, 238 ; all in the 
United States may be devoted to education by the ballot, 318. 

Prudence, extreme, consistent with rectitude, 136 ; selfishness deified under 
the name of, 305. 

Public lands of the United States squandered by Congress, 311 ; history of 
waste of, by Henry D. Lloyd, in the Chicago Tribune, 311, 312, 313. 

Public schools of New England, the corollary of universal suffrage, 303 ; 
the old system of education put into the, 303 ; popular idea of the, 304 ; 
neither science nor art taught in the, 304 ; revived the Greco-Roman 
subjective system, introduced hito England with the revival of learning, 
304. 

Public schools of the United States, attendance in, not compulsory — some 
children enter them, and some do not, 310; leave out that which most 
nearly concerns the business of life, 319. 

Pugilist, how John Morrissey became a, 308, 309. 

Pullman, George M., Trustee of the Chicago Manual Training School Asso- 
ciation, 340. 

Purdue University, pronounced success achieved in manual training in, un- 
der the directorship of Professor Goss, 335. 

R. 

Railroad, the, influence of, upon the destinies of mankind, 170 ; taxes to the 
utmost nearly every department of the useful arts, 171 ; incompetency 
of management of, as shown by shrinkage in values of stocks of, 210; 
in the proprietor of, the two great elements of modern power, land and 
steam, are united, 315; proprietor of the, is a king, 315; monstrous 
claims of the proprietor of, 315. 

Reading, automatism of teaching, in the schools of the United States, as 
shown by the Walton report, 197 ; Colonel Parker declares that pre- 
vailing methods of instruction in, are " utterly opposed to a mental law 
about which there can be no dispute," 206. 

Reason, in existing systems of education, allowed to slumber, 200. 



INDEX. 393 

Reber, Prof. Louis E.,of the Pennsylvauia State College, in support of man- 
ual training, 346. 

Richard I. presents King Arthur's sword Excalibar to Tancred, the Crusa^ 
der, 11. 

Roberts, Richard, a great English inventor of the eighteenth century, 84. 

"Rocket," the, George Stephenson's first locomotive, 118. 

Roebuck, Dr. John, a patron of Watt, 84. 

Roman aristocrats, were refined and accomplished, 272; the product of the 
Roman schools of rhetoric and logic, 2Y3 ; savage contest for suprem- 
acy among the, 273 ; the prize for which they contended, 273. 

Roman civilization the product of all that had gone before, 260. 

Roman literature, possessed no saving quality, 271 ; did not represent the 
Roman people, 271. 

Roman State, the, slavery the corner-stone of, 261. 

Romans, the, had no peer either in courage or fortitude, 260 ; vices of, 
shown in the character of Appius, the Decemvir, 260 ; virtues of, shown 
in the character of Virginius, 261 ; sense of justice of, swallowed up in 
lust of power, 262 ; early triumphs of industrial, 264 ; indebted to slaves 
for all the arts, 265 ; philosophy of, so shallow as to render them callous 
to the great crimes upon which the State rested, 268 ; debasing influ- 
ence of the Greek philosophy upon, 270 ; under the Empire rewarded 
vice and punished virtue, 270 ; preferred Ca;sar, Caligula, and Xero 
to Cato, Germanicus, and Agricola, 270 ; retrograded towards a state of 
savagery under the Empire, 271; became absolutely selfish, and hence 
totally depraved, 272. 

Rome, the decline of, caused by the failure of the fuel supply, and by her 
neglect of the useful arts, 63, 64 ; had she possessed great mechanics 
her fall might have been averted, 64 ; her civilization culminated at the 
limit of the application of iron to the useful arts, 83 ; a pen-picture of 
the decline of, 83 ; her splendors and her degradation, 138 ; full of, 
stopped the study of physiology, 153 ; the dominion of, logical — vigorous 
but pitiless, 259 ; all the great races mingled in, 260 ; laws of, show the 
stamina of her people, 261 ; supply of laborers for, maintained by de- 
populating conquered countries, 261 ; in the train of the legions return- 
ing to, were men, women, and children destined to slavery, 261 ; laws of, 
in regard to slaves, terrible, 261 ; for the free citizen of, to labor with his 
hands was more disgraceful than to die of starvation, 262; free citizen 
paupers of, crying "bread and circuses," 262; education in, confined to 
politics and war, 262 ; became the great robber nation of the world, 
262 ; was on the land what Greece had been on the sea — a pirate, 262 ; 
the spoil of conquered countries used to bribe courts, senators, and the 
populace, 263 ; nothing safe in, from the hand of rapacity, 263 ; grew 
rich throuirh plunder, and poor in public and private virtue, 263 ; bribery 



394 INDEX. 

in, 264 ; great social change in, after tlie fall of Greece and Carthage and 
the reduction of Asia, 264 ; summary of the causes of the fall of, 264 ; 
scenes immediately preceding the fall of, 265, 266 ; the seat of all the 
v.'orld's learning, 266; the wise men of, powerless to help their fellow- 
men, because their philosophy was false, 266 ; nietaph3'sical philosophy 
of, 266, 26Y ; the philosophy of, furnished an excuse for slavery, 26Y; 
suffrage in, the subject of open traffic, 267, 268 ; noted men of, igno- 
rant of the cause of the disorders which afflicted the body politic, 268 ; 
in the city of, vice reigned supreme, while in the provinces there was 
a middle class by whom all the domestic virtues were practised, 308 ; 
no culture in, for girls till late in the Empire, 360. 

Bomulus and Remus, legend of, 259. 

Rousseau, the school he described, 2 ; his opinion that the poor need no 
education, 124; his theory of the vital importance of early training, 
125; his definition of education, 125; his appreciation of the impor- 
tance of the education of woman, 125, 126 ; his condemnation of the 
old system of education, 126 ; declaration of, that education is nothing 
but habit, 245. 

Runkle, Dr. John D., his declaration that public education should touch 
practical life in a larger number of points, 202 ; the founder of manual 
training in the United States, 32*7 ; excerpts from tlie report of, in 1876, 
recommending the adoption of manual training by the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, 327, 328 ; letter of, to tlie author, containing an 
exposition of the theory of manual training, with an account of its origin 
in the mind of, 331, 332; assists in introducing manual training into 
Girard College, 348. 

Ruskin, on finding the truth in things [no^e], 145; on disciplining the fin- 
gers in the laboratory of the goldsmiths [note], 148 ; on learning by labor 
what the lips of man could never teach [wo^f], 152 ; tribute of, to labor, 
[7iote], 161 ; on rogues, a manufactured article [rio^e], 237 ; on how na- 
tional debts bear upon labor [MOiJe], 287 ; on how standing armies are 
supported [MO<e], 289. 

Russia, Emperor of, presents one hundred models of mechanical manipula- 
tions to the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog}', 69 ; offers John Ar- 
nold five thousand dollars for a duplicate of his George III. watch, 86. 

Russia, arbitrary act of, in 1770, in relation to the export of iron, 115; 
solves tlie problem of tool instruction by the laboratory process, 325 ; 
manual training introduced into all the technical schools of, 327. 



San Francisco, Cal., manual training in, 336. 

Sankey Canal, the, authorized upon condition that boats plying upon it 
should be drawn by men only, 179. 



INDEX. 395 

Saracens, the friends of education, of science and art, 278 ; inventors of 
cotton-paper, promoters of all the industries, including agriculture, 278, 
279 ; driven from the soil they had made to blossom like the rose, 279 ; 
ameliorating influence of, upon the ignorance and superstition of the 
Middle Ages, 281. 

Savage, the, how he is trained, 9 ; helplessness of, without tools, 11 ; how 
he is taught to hunt and fish, 176 ; kills a pigeon with a spear at thirty 
yards, but cannot count the fingers on his right hand, 181 ; is taught 
what he needs to know in his condition, and is taught nothing else, 181 ; 
if his education were as unscientific as that of the civilized boy, the race 
would perish in the process of being civilized, 215 ; ninety-nine times in 
a hundred he traces the footsteps of his enemy in the forest, 215, 216 ; 
education of, is scientific, 216 ; in the practical character of the training 
of, consists its excellence, 217; mystery which envelops skill of, solved, 
219 ; ignorant, in his primitive state, of all the arts, 274. 

Savonarola, the hater of abuses in the Roman Catholic Church, 234 ; at the 
death -bed of Lorenzo de Medici, 2-35; shaking thrones and making 
proud prelates tremble, 235. 

Savory helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15. 

Saw-mills, opposition to their introduction in England, 178. 

School, of the future, 2 ; proposed by Euskin [no^e], 180. 

Schools, the, have not moved forward with events, 154; are still dominated 
by mediaeval ideas of speculative philosophy, 154; as an industrial 
agency are a failure, 202 ; were established as a bulwark of liberty, 202. 

Schools of England, arraignment of, by Herbert Spencer, 319. 

Schwab, Dr. Erasmus, author of a book entitled, "The Work School in the 
Common School," 362. 

Science, effect of divorce of, from art, 11 ; through printing every discovery 
in, becomes the heritage of future ages, 282. 

Scientific education, simplicity of, 207, 208 ; difference between, and unsci- 
entific, 217; description of, by Miss S. E. Blow, 218, 219; the manual 
training school course which exercises simultaneously the powers of 
both body and mind, 223 ; is natural education, 223 ; brightens, stimu- 
lates, and develops, while automatic stupefies, 223, 224. 

Scientist, the, a public benefactor, 160; studies the stars, the earth, and 
the air in the light of the flames of persecution, 283. 

Scott, Frank J., contributor to the fund for the founding of tlic Toledo, 
Ohio, Manual Training School, 358. 

Scott, Jesup W., the founder of the Toledo Manual Training School, 358. 

Scott, Maurice, contributor to the fund for the founding of the Toledo Man- 
ual Training School, 358. 

Scott, William F., contributor to the fund for the founding of the Toledo 
Manual Training School, 358. 



396 INDEX. 

Sculpture, limit of, reached in Greece, 73. 

Scythians, among the, the iron sword was a god, 70. 

Segovia, manufactures of, destroyed by the expulsion of the Moors from 
Spain, 279. 

Seligman, Mr. Joseph, munificence of, estalalished Professor Adler's Worlc- 
ingman's School in New York City on a firm basis, 339. 

Selfishness the arch-enemy of virtue, 134; maxims in honor of, 134; Na- 
poleon a colossal example of the folly of, 135 ; in conflict with the true 
spirit of civilization, 135 ; causes revolutions and destroys governments, 
135; is blind of one eye — sees only one side of a cause, 136; let not 
prudence be confounded with, 136 ; extreme, the synonym of depravity, 
136; promoted by prevailing systems of education, 136 ; promoted by 
a mercantile career, 230; of the lawyer, the judge, and the legislator, 
230, 231 ; as it recedes from the mind, justice assumes its appropriate 
place as the controlling element in human conduct, 233 ; the source of 
all social evil, 247 ; transformed Roman courage into cruelty, and Ro- 
man fortitude into brutal stoicism, 262 ; transformed the government 
of Rome from a pure democracy into an oligarchy of wealth, 272 ; van- 
quishes itself in Rome, 273 ; the equivalent of savagery, 273 ; deified 
under the name of prudence, 305 ; calling it prudence led to confound- 
ing right and wrong, 305 ; effects of, in the nineteenth century the same 
as in the first, 306 ; the mind charged with, through subjective educational 
processes, 320; ends in a struggle which ends in a revohuion, 320. 

Seneca, sublime moral precepts of, contrasted with the horrors of the gladi- 
atorial games, 138; his doctrine of humanit}', 139; ignores slaver}', the 
slave, the laborer, and the useful arts, 268 ; morals of, glittering gen- 
eralities, politics of, practical, 269 ; put money in his purse, 269 ; charged 
with complicity in the Piso conspiracy, and banished for the crime of 
adultery, 269. 

Serfs of the Middle Ages converted into mercenary troops to guard the 
modern State, 286. 

Seville, silk industry of, 278 ; looms of, silenced in the seventeenth century, 
279. 

Sewing-machine, the, its accuracy, 87 ; it illustrates the interdependence of 
the practical arts, 87 ; it multiplies garments beyond the power of fig- 
ures to express, 87. 

Shcfiieki, Lord, his estimate of the value of Henry Cort's improvements in 
iron and the steam-engine of Watt, 115 ; his declaration of the purpose 
of the establishment of the American colonies, 202. 

Sheffield, town of, its insignificance in 1715,116; its manufacturing impor- 
tance now, 116. 

Skill being prolific of good should be brought to bear upon educational 
systems, 132. 



INDEX, 397 

Slavery existed in the United States when Horace Mann declared it to be 
the cause of tlie degradation of labor and the laborer, 189 ; aided by 
England in its struggle for survival, 189; influence of, not yet extinct, 
189; has kept its brand of shame upon the useful arts for thousands 
of years, 190; how the Egyptian was reduced to, 250; and labor were 
synonymous terms in Rome, 261 ; a state of, is a state of war, 261 ; con- 
founded with freedom in the United States, 305 ; negroes escaping from, 
called fugitives from justice, 305 ; justified in Faneuil Hall, the cradle 
of liberty, 305 ; tried only by the test of self-interest, 306 ; in the North 
it faded away, in the South it flourished, 306 ; climate conditions, not 
education, saved this continent from the scourge of, 306, 307; question 
of continuance of, in the United States, settled by violence, as savages 
settle controversies, 307. 

Slaves, in Rome, laws in relation to, 261 ; a million killed in the course of 
the servile rebellion in Sicily, 261 ; exposed to wild beasts in the arena 
for the popular amusement, 261; all industrial pursuits in Rome carried 
on by, 262 ; labor of, in Rome, cheaper than that of cattle, 262 ; con- 
struct all the great public works in Rome, 265 ; strike for liberty in 
Rome, and are slaughtered, 365; clank of the chains of, in the streets 
of Boston, 305. 

Smeaton helps to solve the steam-power problem, 15 ; the best woi'kman of 
his time, 85. 

Smiles, Samuel, declares that the automata of the Middle Ages led to the 
useful automatic tools of the eighteenth century, 35 ; his peculiar views 
about Maudslay's great invention, 36 ; his history of the Dutch and Ger- 
man mechanics who contributed to the solution of the problem of the 
application of mineral coal to smelting purposes, 64; his graphic pict- 
ure of the versatility of the smith, 71 ; his pen-picture of the steam- 
ship Warrior " breasting the billows of the North Sea," 85 ; shows 
the true springs of English greatness in his " Lives of the Engineers," 
172; shows the origin of useful arts in England in his great work 
on the Huguenots, 185. 

Smith, the, gives direction to the course of Empire, 62 ; a man of great con- 
sequence in England in the early time, 71 ; name of, descends to more 
families than that of any other profession, 71; versatility of, 71, 72; 
conducts the engineering at the siege of Berwick, 72 ; ancient, kin to 
all the ages through his works, 74. 

Social evils, are the product of defective education, 319. 

Social problems, solution of, to be sought through a radical change in ed- 
ucational methods, 248 ; the railway and factory arc new factors in, 
315; of America cannot be settled as those of Europe are, by emigra- 
tion, 320. 

Solicis, Prof. G., the chief supporter of manual training in France, 362. 



398 INDEX. 

South Carolina, educational system of, confined to a class, as opposed to 
universal education in Jfew England, 233. 

Spain, ruined by the expulsion of the Moors, 2*79 ; destitution in the chief 
cities of, 2*79 ; danger that the royal family of, would go hungry to bed, 
219; is bankrupt, 292. 

Speculation, rages on tlie exchanges of all large American cities, 316; af- 
fects every class in the community, 316 ; stimulates bad passions, and 
creates a distaste for labor, 316. 

Speculative philosophy, only resource of the ancients, 153; dominated the 
world from the fall of Rome to the time of Bacon, 153. 

Speech, must be incarnate in things or it is dead, 141 ; man would lose the 
power of, if his words should cease to be realized in things, 149 ; de- 
pendent upon objects for its existence, 150; has its origin not less in 
external objects than in the mind, 150; would be lost if the senses 
should cease to be impressed by things, 150; freedom of, and of 
thought, catch-penny phrases, 192. 

Spelling, automatism in teaching, in the schools of the United States, as 
shown by the Walton report, 198, 199. 

Spencer, Herbert, on the defects of the schools of England, 319. 

Standing armies of Europe, a legacy of evil from the Middle Ages, 285 ; 
recruited from the ranks of the emancipated serfs, 286; the dominant 
feature of European public economy, 286; number two million five hun- 
dred thousand men, 286 ; collateral evils of — wars, debts, and exorbi- 
tant tax levies, 286 ; are responsible for the illiteracy and pauperism 
of the people, 288; what they cost and what they stand in the way of, 
289 ; how they are supported [noie], 289 ; are an assumption of the 
barbarism of man, 296; stand in the way of universal education and 
universal industrial prosperity, 299 ; must everywhere soon disappear 
before the march of education, 299 ; are as abnormal in Europe as 
slavery was in the United States, 299, 300; are the instruments of tyr- 
anny, the last analysis of selfishness, 300 ; the result of the Greco-Ro- 
man methods of education, 300. 

State, a, growth of, depends upon progress in the practical arts, 151 ; ceas- 
ing to advance, its language ceases to grow, becomes stationary, stag- 
nates, 151. 

Statesmen, not the authors of English progress, 159; Buckle's scathing ar- 
raignment of, 160; more highly esteemed than civil engineers, machin- 
ists, and artisans, 185. 

Statutes, that wear out in a year, 241. 

Steam, power of, known to the ancients, 14 ; makes all civilized countries 
prosperous and great, 161 ; must be harnessed at the forge and in the 
shop to enable it to do its work, 1'70; power exerted by, in the manu- 
factories of Great Britain equal to the manual labor of four hundred 



INDEX. 399 

millions of men, 184 ; m;iy be lilcened to an idea which finds expression 
through tlie engine — a tiling, 245; the railway and the factory two 
great products of, 315. 

Steam-hammer, the, in works of Mr. Crane, Chicago, '75; in Pittsburg, Pa., 
and at Krupp's cast-steel works, Essen, Germany, 75 ; invention of, in 
IBS'?, its accuracy, power, and delicacy, 76 ; application of the principle 
of, to the pile-driver in 1845, 76. 

Steamship, the, influence of, upon tlie destinies of manliind, 170. 

Steel, Age of, great enterprises of tlie, dwarf the merely ornamental branches 
of learning, 17'J. 

Steele, Prof. A. J., Principal of tiie Le Jloync Normal Institute — letter of, 
to the Author, 356. 

Stephenson, George, inventor of the locomotive, 84; sketch of his remark- 
able career, 118, 119; declines knighthood and a membership in the 
Royal Society, 119 ; the founder of the railway system of the world, 119. 

Stephenson, Robert, an English railway engineer, 84. 

Slick, legend of Adam and the, 157 ; the symbol and instrument of power, 
158. 

Stoics and philosophers of Rome, lofty moral sentiments of, in contrast with 
the Roman vices, 139. 

Suetonius, portrays the cruelties of the Caesars, but bints at no cause there- 
for inherent in the social system, 268. 

Suffrage, love of country in tlie United States is a due appreciation of the 
riglit of, 317; in the universality of the right of, lies the power of cor- 
recting all social evils, 318; destined to preservation forever in the 
United States, 318 ; attempt to limit, in New York accounted for by the 
prevalence of European ideas, 318 ; the right of, can be taken from the 
American people only by force, 318 ; standard of, lowered by ignorance 
and depravity, 319; wlicn better informed it will be more honest, 319; 
with increased intelligence it will gain the power to grapple with social 
abuses, 319. 

Superstition, how it arose througii ignorance and selfishness, 249. 

Sweden, five hundred slojd schools in, in 1882, 362; supports a school for 
the training of teachers of sloJd schools at Naiis, 363. 

Syria, the founders, smiths, and all the artisans of, were slaves, 56. 

T. 

Tacitus, his account of the execution of four hundred slaves for the murder 
of one man, 261 ; his lament at the decline of public virtue, 263; is si- 
lent on the subject of the infamy of slavery, and on the shame of de- 
grading labor, 268. 

Tancrcd the Crusader pays for King Arthur's sword E.xcalibar "four great 
ships and fifteen galley.=," 71. 



400 INDEX. 

Tarquins, the banishment of, shows the swiftness of Roman retribution, 
and the terrible force of Roman resolution, 260. 

Telegraph, the, influence of, upon the destinies of mankind, 170. 

Teleplione, the work of the hand, 156. 

Telescope, the work of the hand, 155. 

Texas, Agricultural and Meclianical College of — how it was revolutionized 
and manual training introduced, 353. 

Theodoric, attempt of, to reconstruct the Roman civilization, 275 ; the or- 
der evoked from chaos by, to chaos soon returned, 276. 

Theorem, a, whether susceptible of proof, is always a question until the 
doubt is solved by the act of doing, 144. 

Things both the subject and occasion of speech, 151 ; regarded as of less 
vital importance than abstract ideas, 185; the false, easily detected in 
— examples, 224 ; the study of, steadies and balances the mind, 225 ; 
the truth revealed only in, 243 ; ideas are mere vain speculations till 
embodied in, 243 ; the habit of expressing ideas in, should be formed 
in the schools, 245. 

Thinking, acting is the complement of, 244. 

Thought, must be incarnate in things, or it is dead, 141 ; is not even present 
to the thinker until he has set it forth, out of himself, 150; indepen- 
dent, of all mental processes the most difficult — habit, tradition, and 
reverence for antiquity unite to forbid it, 192. 

Thoughts must be expressed to have influence, 244 ; may be expressed 
most forcibly in things, 244. 

Thucydides arraigns the Greeks as falsifiers and perjurers, 255. 

Thurston, Robert H., on the tremendous power wielded by the mechanic, 183. 

Toledo, 0., Manual Training School, inception of, due to the generosity of 
the late Jesup W. Scott and his three sons, 358 ; connected with the 
public high-scliool, 358, 359; students of, consist of both sexes, 359; 
the course for girls in, 359. 

Toledo, Spain, woollen manufactures of, transferred by the exiled Moors to 
Tunis, 279. 

" Tom-all-alones " in " Bleak House " — social philosophy of, 309. 

Tool practice, quickens the intellect, 114; engenders a thirst for wisdom, 
114; history of, in England confirms this view, 114; the foundation of 
James Watt's culture, 119; George Stephenson's career an illustra- 
tion of the intellectual effect of, 119 ; testimony of the Director of the 
Artisans' School at Rotterdam, Holland, as to intellectual effect of, 121 ; 
testimony of Dr. Woodward, Director of the St. Louis Manual Training 
School, as to intellectual effect of, 121; testimony of M. Victor Delia 
Vos, Dii'cctor of the Imperial Technical School, Moscow, as to intellect- 
ual effect of, 121 ; effect of, as shown by the experience of the Me- 
chanic Art School at Komotan, Bohemia, 122. 



INDEX. 401 

Tools, influence of, upon modem civilization, 9; represent the steps of hu- 
man progress, 10; tlie great civilizing agency of the world, 11. 

Townships of Xew England, their establishment logical, 303. 

Tradition, tyranny of, 124. 

Tribune, The Chicago Daily, Henry D. Lloyd's history of the United States 
land grants in, 311-313. 

Truth, the struggle after, eliminates selfishness from the mind, 233 ; the 
love of, more natural than the love of the false, 233 ; the heroes of all 
the ages honor it, 234 ; becomes conspicuous through efforts to suppress 
it, 283. 

Tulane, Paul, founder of the Tulane University of New Orleans, La., 347. 

Tulane University, manual training a prominent feature in the, 347. 

Turkish Empire, story of its origin through the art of forging, 61. 

Tweedism, what made it possible in the city of New York, 309. 

Types, through the medium of, the voice of genius is destined to reach to 
the ends of the earth, 282. 

U. 

United States, the, not at the front in the race of nations for industrial su- 
premacy, 203 ; comparison of imports and exports of, with those of Eng- 
land, 203 ; industrially ill-balanced, 204 ; suffering from a paucity of 
skilled labor, 204; educational system of, very poor, as shown by the 
statistics of railway and commercial disasters, 224; educational system 
of, as poor morally as mentally, 224 ; neglect of education by, the most 
astonishing fact in the history of, 235 ; a scientific educational system 
forced upon the South by, would have averted the war of rebellion, 237 ; 
could not protect property in slaves, 238 ; social conditions in, similar 
to those prevailing in Europe, 307 ; illiteracy in, 307 ; increase of illiter- 
acy in, 307 ; every sixth man who votes in, is unable to write his name, 
307; land system of, rivals that of England in injustice, 311; history 
of the land system of, by Henry D. Lloyd, in the Chicago Tribune, 311— 
313 ; the sentiment of patriotism justifiable only in, 317 ; the soldier of, 
is a citizen of, 317, 318. 

Universities, the men who have transformed the face of the earth came 
. not from the, 185; Bacon's caustic remark in relation to the, 185; on 
Bacon's plan would have united science and art, and .=o have promoted 
progress, 185. 

Y. 

Yalerius, died so poor that he was buried at the public charge, 264. 

Venus, made the wife of Yulcan, the God of Fire, 70. 

Von Kaas, Rittmeister Claussen, lectures on the subject of manual training 
in Germany, 362. 

Yulcan, the God of Fire, given Venus to wife, and made the father of Cu- 
pid, 70. 



403 INDEX. 



W. 



Waif, the, description of, by John Morrissey, 308 ; destined to become an 
equal citizen, 309 ; made Tweedism in New York City possible, 309 ; 
pollutes the fountains of justice, 309, 310 ; menaces the government with 
destruction, 310; permitted by the hundred thousand to develop into a 
savage, 310 ; power of, to tax civilized people, 310. 

"Walton, George A., report of, in regard to investigation of the schools of 
Norfolk County, Mass., 196-199. 

Wars, modern, of European nations involve no principle, 286. 

Washington University, manual training department of, established in 1878, 
332, 333; excerpts from the prospectus of, 1882-83, showing the prog- 
ress of manual training in, 333, 334 ; founding of manual training de- 
partment of, due to the energy and foresight of Dr. Woodward first, and 
second, to the donations of private citizens, 334, 335. 

Watch Company, Elgin National, makes a thousand watches a day — all 
perfect, 87 ; makes two hundred thousand watch-screws in a few min- 
utes, 87. 

Watt, James, the last link in the chain of steam-engine inventors, 15; Dr. 
Draper's eulogy of, 15 ; chief difficulty of, in perfecting the steam-en- 
gine, 84, 85 ; Smeaton's opinion that tlie engine of, could not be made 
to work with hand-made tools, 85 ; sketch of the life and career of, 119, 
120 ; a dull boy in school, 120 ; tribute of Sir Walter Scott to the great- 
ness of, 120; every incident in the life of, now eagerly sought for, 171. 

Weaving machinery, improved, opposition to introduction of, in England, 
178. 

Whitney, Eli 13., inventor of the cotton-gin, 84. 

William the Conqueror, his appreciation of the importance of land pro- 
prietorship, 311. 

Williams, Roger, tlie champion of absolute freedom of thought and speech, 
303. 

Wilson, Dr. George, his panegyric on the hand, 145. 

Wisdom, the power of discriminating between what is true and what is 
false, 152 ; the hand used as the synonym of, because it is only in the 
concrete that the false is sure of detection, 152. 

Woman, tremendous influence of, upon the destinies of the human race, 
125 ; neglect of past ages to educate, a crime, 125 ; education of, more 
important than that of man, 128 ; condition of, in a state of savagery, 
249 ; reform in education must begin with, 359 ; the education of, more 
imperative than that of man, 359 ; neglect of the education of, among 
the ancients, 360; degradation of, in the Middle Ages, 360; contempt 
of, by Bacon, Swift, Addison, and Johnson, 360; Shakespeare's tribute 
to, 360; Ruskin's worship of, 360; the purity of the home and the ef- 



INDEX 403 

ficiency of the school depends upon, 361 ; in the van where the imagi- 
nation leads, 361 ; less selfish than man, 361 ; intuitions of, truer, ideals 
higher, sense of justice finer, and of duty stronger than those of man, 
361 ; the teacher of man from the cradle to the grave, 361. 

Woodward, Dr. C. M., Director of the St. Louis Manual Training School, 
121 ; statement of, as to intellectual effect of manual training, 121 ; his 
account of the origin of the St. Louis school, 333. 

Wood-turning laboratory, radical change of, from carpentry — from angles 
to spherical, cylindrical, and eccentric forms, 30 ; the value in the arts 
of the lathe, 30 ; its mythical origin, 33 ; its application and uses among 
the ancients, 34 ; fashionable in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
in England and France, 34 ; purpose of, is not to make turners, but to 
educate boys, 39 ; the machinery of, in motion, 39 ; pen-picture of the 
students in, 39 ; the lesson in detail in, 40 ; the students at their lathes 
in, 43 ; the instructor passes upon the work of the class in, 44. 

Wootz, or Lidian steel, produced near Golconda, and used in the fabrica- 
tion of Damascus blades, 12 ; millions of dollars expended in efforts to 
produce the equal of, 72. 

Words, weakness of, 141 ; cannot attain to definiteness save as living out- 
growths of realities, 150; easy to juggle with, and make the worse ap- 
pear the better reason, 224 ; educational systems still train in, rather 
than in things, 319, 320. 

Workingman's School and Free Kindergarten of New York City, the most 
comprehensive educational institution in the world, 336 ; scope of, 337 ; 
purpose of, identical with that of the manual training school, 337 ; 
methods of instruction in the, 337, 338. 

Y. 

Yarranton, Andrew, according to Patrick Edward Dove, was the founder of 
English political economy, 175. 

Z. 

Zenophon, after conducting the retreat of the Ten Thousand, led a detach- 
ment of Cireeks on a pillaging expedition, 255. 



THE END. 



BLACKIE & SON'S 

LIST OF 

EDUCATIONAL WORKS, 

49 OLD BAILEY, LONDON, E.G.; 
GLASGOW, EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN. 



Adopted by the London and other Principal School Boards. 

New Editions, 
Adapted to meet the latest Code requirements. 

THE GRADED READERS. 

Edited by MAURICE PATERSON, B.A., &c., 

Rector of Moray House Training College, Edinburgh. 



Each Book is illustrated in a highly instructive and artistic manner. 



Graded Primer, Part \. 32 pp., cloth cover, 2j^rf. ; paper cover, i^i/. 
Graded Primer, Part II. 48 pp., cloth cover, '^d.; paper cover, 2d. 



Graded Primer, Complete. 80 pp., cloth, 



First Graded Reader. .. 
Second Graded Reader. 
Third Graded Reader..., 
Fourth Graded Reader. 
Fifth Graded Reader. .. 
Sixth Graded Reader. .. 



136 pp., cloth boards, 

136 pp., cloth boai-ds, 

200 pp., cloth boards, 

232 pp., cloth boards, 

224 pp., cloth boards, 

224 pp., cloth boards, 
The Graded Reading Sheets. Illustrated (14 pp. of Primer I. in 

Facsimile), price 3J. 6d. per set, or mounted on boards, 14^. 
The Graded Reading Sheets, Second Series. Profusely Illustrated. 
24 Sheets, containing 16 pp., Primer I., size 35 by 27^ inches. 
Price bs. per set, or mounted on boards, i\s. 



price 4a'. 
price Si/, 
price %d. 
price \s. 
price \s. yi. 
price \s. ^d. 
price Is. 2,d. 



The Original Editions can still be had of the First Reader, 96 pp., 6d. ; 
Fourth Reader, 288 pp., is. 6d.; Fifth Reader, 320 pp., 2s. 
Sixth Reader, 384 pp., 2s. 6d. 



HOME LESSON BOOKS. 

BASED ON THE "GRADED READERS." 

First and Second Readers, id. each. 

Third and Fourth Readers, 2d. each. 



Blackie &^ Son's Ediccatio7tal List. 



ADOPTED BY THE LONDON AND OTHER PRINCIPAL SCHOOL BOARDS. 



BLACKIE'S HISTORICAL READERS. 

By GEORGE GIRLING, 
Head Master of Burghley Road Board School, London. 



With interesting Illustrations of great educational value. 



No. I. for Standard III. 
CTORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY, in simple language; 
from Earliest Times to end of the Plantagenet Period. 
1 60 pp., cloth, IS. 

No. II. for Standard IV. 
gNGLISH HISTORY, from the beginning of the Tudor Period 
to Latest Times. 192 pp., cloth boards, is. 2,d. 

No. III. for Standard V. 
QUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, Part L, 
from Early Times to the end of the Tudor Period. 244 pp., 
cloth boards, is. 6d. 

No. IV. for Standard VI. 
QUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, Part II., 
from James I. to the Present Time. 222 pp., cloth boards, is. 6d. 

Nos. III. and IV. in one volume, cloth, red edges, 2s. 6d. 
HOME LESSON BOOKS 

For the First, Second, and Third Historical Readers, 2d. each. 



ADVANCED HISTORICAL READER. 

Consisting chiefly of choice extracts from Macaulay, Froude, Scott, Robertson, 
Carlvle, Clarendon, and others. 

Part I.— From the Earliest Times to the Death of Richard III. 

224 pp., cloth boards, is. 6d. 
Part II.— From the Accession of Henry VII. to the Battle of 

Waterloo. 224 pp., cloth boards, is. 6d. 



ELEMENTARY HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By George Girling. 
Illustrated. Limp cloth. 

Standard IV. To the Norman Conquest, 5^. 

Standard V. From Norman Conquest to Accession of Henry VII., S^. 

Standard VI. From Henry VII. to Death of George III., lod. 

QUTLINES OF BRITISH HISTORY from the Accession of James L 
^^^ to the Death of George III. 96 pp., cloth limp, "jd. 

UISTORY OF SCOTLAND to the Union of the Crowns. By Alex- 
ander Whamond, F.E.i.s. Foolscap 8vo, cloth, is. 

CHORT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. For Junior Classes, with 
Illustrative Readings from Standard Authors. 128 pp., cloth limp, gd. 



Blackie £r= Son^s Educational List. 



ADDITIONAL READING BOOKS. 

FOR UPPER CLASSES. 



'yHE SHAKESPEARE READER. Extracts from Shakespeare. 
With Introductory Paragraphs and Notes, Grammatical, tlistorical, 
and Explanatory. i6o pp., cloth, \s. 

C HAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. A Series of the most suitable plays to be 
used as Reading books. Carefully edited, with simple and useful Notes. 

King Richard IL Complete with Notes. 96 pp., cloth, 8^. 
Julius Caesar. Complete with Notes. 96 pp. , cloth, So'. 
Henry the Eighth. Complete with Notes, icx) pp., cloth, 8(/. 
King John. Complete with Notes. 96 pp., cloth, %d. 
The Merchant of Venice. Together with the Prose Narrative of 
the Play, from Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. 104 pp., cloth, %d. 
The Tempest. Complete with Notes. 96 pp., cloth, 8(/. 
As You Like It. Complete with Notes. 96 pp., cloth, 8^/. 
Others in Preparatioi. 

Q OLDSMITH'S COMEDIES. Edited by Harold Littledale, b.a. 

The Good-Natured Man, With Life of Goldsmith, and Notes. 

96 pp., cloth, i.f. 
She Stoops to Conquer; or. The Mistakes of a Night. 

With Notes. 100 pp., cloth, l^. 

n LADINGS FROM THE SPECTATOR : being a selection of papers 
contributed by Addison. With Notes. 192 pp., f'cap 8vo, cloth, \s. 3^/. 

DEADINGS FROM SIR WALTER SCOTT. The Talisman, 
IvANHOE, Anne of Geierstein, and Marmion. With Notes, &c. 
192 pp., f'cap 8vo, cloth, \s. id. 

HEADINGS FROM ROBINSON CRUSOE. With Copious Notes, 
and 23 Illustrations by Gordon Browne. 192 pp., cloth, i.f. 3^/. 

jUILTON'S PARADISE LOST.— Book I. With Life of Milton, and 
Explanatory Notes, by E. F. WiLLOUGHBY, m.b. Cloth, 10./. 

pOETICAL READER, Selections from Standard Authors. 
For the use of Elementary Schools. 224 pp., cloth, i.r. ()d. 

"THE BRITISH BIOGRAPHICAL READER. Sketches of Pro- 
minent Men by Macaulay, Alison, Brougham, Emerson, Scott, &c. 

With numerous Portraits. 288 pp., f'cap 8vo, cloth, zs. 



Blackie &^ So7i's Kducational List. 



READING '^OQY^^— Continued. 

"THE NEWSPAPER READER. Selections from Leading Jour- 
nals OF THE Nineteenth Century on Prominent Events. 
By H. F. BUSSEY and T. W. Reid. 288 pp., f'cap 8vo, cloth, zs. 

T ONDON, PAST AND PRESENT. Being Notices Historical and 
Descriptive of Ancient and Modern London, and of the counties 011 
which it stands. With Illustrations. 288 pp., f'cap 8vo, cloth, 2s. 

'THE PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES of Geof- 
FREY Chaucer. With Life of the Author, Explanatory Notes, and 
Index to Difficult Words. By E. F. WiLLOUGHBY. Cloth, \s. 6d. 

DAYNHAM'S SELECT READINGS AND RECITATIONS; 
with Rules and Exercises on Correct Pronunciation, Gesture, Tone, 
and Emphasis. By Geo. W. Baynham, Certified Master to Glasgow 
University, &c. 384 pp., crown Svo, cloth, 2s. 6d. 

jyiYTHS AND LEGENDS OF ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME. 
A Hand-book of Mythology, for Schools and private Students. Bj 
E. M. Berens. Illustrated from Antique Sculptures. 330 pp., cloth, 3J-. 



SCHOOL CLASSICS. 

Selections from Standard Authors, with Biographical Sketches and Ex- 
planatory Notes. Each 32 pp., paper, 2d.; cloth, 3^/. 

For STANDARDS IV. V. VI. and VII. 
Merchant of Venice, Ae.I.III.IV., Shak. The Prisoner of Chillon, .... Byron. 
Selections from Henry Eighth and Fire Worshippers, Parts I. II., Moore. 

Julius Caesar, Shakespeare. | xiie Ancient Mariner, Coleridge. 

Selections from Richard II. and The Lady of the Lake, Canto I., Scott. 

Henry IV. , Part II. , . . . . Shakespeare. Marmion, Canto VI. , Scott. 

Essays (selections from),... Bacon. LayoftheLastMinstrel,CantoL, Scott 

L'Allegro & II Penseroso,... Milton. ■pj^g village, Crabbe. 

The Deserted Village, Goldsmith, xhe Pleasures of Hops, Pt. I. , Campbell 

The Traveller, Goldsmith, j The Queen's Wake, Hogg. 

Cotter's Saturday Night, &c.. Burns. The Armada, &c., Macaulay 

Prophecy of Dante, Cantos I. II., Byron. Essay on Bunyan, Macaulay 

Evangeline (64 pp., paper, 3d.; cloth, 4d.),.. Longfellow. 

With Additional Etymologies. 40 pp.j paper cover, 3^/. each. 

The Prisoner of Chillon. Lay of the Last Minstrel. Marmion. 



Blackie b^ Son's Edticatioftal List. 



Adopted by the London and other principal School Boards, and by 
the National Board of Education in Ireland. 

VERE FOSTER'S WRITING COPY-BOOKS. 



The special features which preferentially distinguish Mr. Vere Foster's 
Writing Copy-Books are as follows : — 

(i) The more faithful imitation of natural writing. 

(2) The combination in the greatest possible degree of legibility with rapidity 
of execution. The formation of all the letters, and notably of the letters a, d, 
g, q, is adapted to this end. 

(3) The writing of each word continuously from end to end, with the sole 
exception of the letter x. 

(4) The tailed letters of moderate length. 

(s) The systematically progressive arrangement and variety of headlines — 
two lines on each page. 

(6) Traced lines under each copy, to be written over (in Book i). 

(7) Guide lines to regulate the length of tailed letters (in Books i J< to 6). 

(8) The same clear style of writing for both sexes — there being no reason why 
girls should be tajiglii a cramped illegible hand. 

*^* In the regulation recently issued to H.M. Inspectors from the Educa- 
tion Office it is stated that "in Standard IV. and those above it writing 
should be running, free, and symmetrical, as well as legible and clear." 
No better terms could l3e found to describe the writing secured by the 
use of these Copy-books. 
Superior Edition, 2d. each number. Popular Edition, id. each number. 
Contents of the Numbers. 



I. Strokes, Letters, Short Words, 
ij, 2. Long Letters, Short Words, 

Figures. 
2^. Words of Four, Five, or Six Letters. 
3. Capitals, Short Words, Figures. 
3J, 4. Sentences of Short Words. 
4J. Quotations from Shakespeare. 
5, 6. Sentences. — Maxims, Morals, &c. 
5J.* Sentences, in Writing of Three Sizes. 
6J.* Sentences, in Writing of Two Sizes. 
7. Sentences and Christian Names. 
8.* Sentences. — One Line on each Page. 
9.* Sentences. — Two Lines on each Page. 



10.* Plain and Ornamental Lettering. 

11. Exercise Book. — Wide Ruling. 

111. Exercise Book. — Svosize. Price k/. 

12. Exercise Book. — Ruled in Squares. 
i2j. Exercise Book. — Svosize. Price t(/. 
13. ' Exercise Book. — For Book-keeping. 
14.* Essay Book. — Ruled forComposition. 
15,* Exercise Book for Beginners.— 

Ruled for Small Text. 

16.* Civil Service or Official Style. 

Medium Hand. 

17." Civil Service or Official Style. 

Small Hand. 
X. Copy-Book Protector and Blotter. 

Keeping tlie Books clean. Price \d. 



* Not in Popular Edition. 

NATIONAL COMPETITION IN WRITING AND DRAWING. 

Mk. Vkre Fcjstf.k has awarded jirizcs for Wilting and drawing for many 
years. 4572 Prizes, in sums of from y. to _^5, have been already distributed, 
amounting to over ^2000. List of prizc-lakcrs for present year and scheme for 
the Sixteenth Annual Competition, 18S6, will be sent- post free on applica- 
tion to Mr. Vere Foster, Belfast, or to the Publishers. 



Blackie &^ Sottas Educational List. 



VERE FOSTER'S WRITING BOOKS. 



BOLD WRITING SERIES. 

ELEGANT, CLEAR, AND LEGIBLE. 

This series of Copy-books has been prepared by Mr. Vere Foster in con- 
formity with the Education Code, and is specially adapted to meet the views of 
those Inspectors and Teachers who desire Large and Text Hand to be taught 
in Infant Schools, and who prefer a more bold, round, and upright style than 
that of the Original Series. 

NOW READY, PRICE TWOPENCE EACH NUMBER. 

1.— LARGE HAND (H inch ruling). Elements of Letters, Short Letters 
only, carefully graded. 

2.— HALF-TEXT (^ inch ruling). Short and Long Letters, Words of 
Four Letters, Figures. 

3.— HALF-TEXT {% inch ruling). Short and Long Letters, Words of Five 
Letters, Figures. 

4, 5, 6.— HALF-TEXT. Easy Words with Capitals, Proper Nouns, and 
Sentences of Short Words. [Neariy Ready. 



PALM ERST ON SERIES. 

Adapted to the Recommendations of the Civil Service Commissioners. 

These Copy-books have been designed by Mr. Vere Foster, to carry out the 
principles of clear and legible handwriting, as laid down by the late Lord 
Palmerston for the Civil Service, and also to afford a simple, rapid, and 
elegant style of writing for general correspondence. 

Price 3d. each Number. 

1. Strokes, Easy Letters, Short "Words. 

2. Short and Long Letters, Easy Words, Figures. 

3. Capitals, Short Words, Figures. 

4. Sentences of Short Words (Proverbs and Axioms). 

5. Easy Sentences (Maxims, Morals, and Precepts). 

5, 7, 8, g, 10. Sentences (Wise Sayings, Quotations, Aphorisms). 
II. Plain and Ornamental Lettering. 



VERE FOSTER'S WRITING CHARTS FOR CLASS TEACHING. 

Two sheets showing the Shapes and Proportions of Letters as adopted in Vere 
Foster's Series of Writing Copy-Books. Size 2j x 20 inches. 

Price in Sheets, xs. per pair; Mounted on Millboard, u. 6d. 



VERE FOSTER'S IMPROVED HAT INK-WELLS. Price Is. per dozen. 



Blackie £r» Son^s Educational List. 



I'/zd.; 


cloth. 


2}4d. 




i/zd.; 


,, 


2%d. 




^Vzd.; 


)) 


2%d. 




2d.; 


)> 


Id 




pp., paper, 3(/. 


. ; cloth. 


Ad. 


Zd.; 


cloth, 


4^. 




2,d.; 


!> 


4./. 




3d.; 


,, 


4</. 





ARITHMETIC, &c. 

THE COMPREHENSIVE STANDARD ARITHMETICS. 

They are brought in all particulars quite up to date. The book 
for Standard V. begins with easy lessons in Fractions; the "unity 
method" is taught in that book, and is used throughout the higher 
rules wherever possible. 

They are graded in separate sets to meet the requirements of the 
English and Scotch Codes. 

Standard I. — 32 pp., paper. 
Standard II. — 32 pp., ,, 
Standard III. — 32 pp., ,, 
Standard IV. — 48 pp., ,, 
Standard IV. (Scotch Code).— 64 
Standard V. — 64 pp., paper. 
Standard VI. — 64 pp., ,, 
Standard VII. — 64 pp., ,, 
Standards VI. -VI I. together: reduced to the exact requirements of 
the Code. — 64 pp., paper, 3^.; cloth, j^d. 

KEY to each part, paper, -ijd.; or a complete Key, cloth, \s. dd. 

QLARKSON'S TEST-CARDS. A series of Arithmetical Test-cards. 
By A. J. Clarksox, Headmaster of St. Paul's School, Stratford, 
London. Code 1886. For Standards II. to VII. Each 15. per 
packet in cloth case. 

HTHE STANHOPE ARITHMETICAL TEST-CARDS. For boys 
and girls. Code 1886. For Standards III. to VII. Each \s. per 
packet in cloth case. 

yHE WHITEHALL ARITHMETICAL TEST-CARDS. For Stan- 
dards III. IV. V. VI. and VII. Each \s. per packet in cloth case. 

A COMPLETE ARITHMETIC. For the Higher Standards and Pupil- 
teachers. With Answers, 234 pages, \s. 6d. Exercises only, 192 
pages, is. Answers only, in limp cloth, 6d. 

lyr ENTAL ARITHMETIC ; Consisting mainly of Problems designed 
specially to give the power of ready solution. Cloth, 6d. 

'THE PUPIL'S MENTAL ARITHMETIC. (Addition — Interest.) 
Stitched, 2d.; cloth, 3^;'. Key, 3r/. 

ALGEBRA, Up to and T.vcludino EorAxioNs m- the First 
Degree. For Senior Pupils and Pupil-teacliers. By J. G. Kerr, m.a. 
Cloth, IJ-. -id. Key, 6d. 



Blackie &-' Son's Educational List. 



KK\TY\MKY\C— Continued. 

ALGEBRAIC FACTORS: How to Find them and how to Use 
THEM. By W. T. Knight, f.S.Sc.Lond. Cloth, is. 6d. 

■CLEMENTARY MENSURATION, Lines, Surfaces, and Solids. 

With numerous Exercises. By J. Martin. F'cap 8vo, cloth, lod. 
yHE YOUNG CALCULATOR ; A series of Arithmetical Tablets for 

the First Standard. By Henry J. Thomas, cm. Price is. 

A PRACTICAL ARITHMETIC on an entirely new method, for 
Schools, Colleges, and Candidates preparing for Matriculation, Civil 
Service, Excise, University, Local, and other Examinations. By John 
Jackson. 408 pp., foolscap Svo, cloth, 45. 

EXAMINATION ARITHMETIC; Containing 1200 Arithmetical Pro- 
blems and Exercises (with Answers), selected from Oxford and Cam- 
bridge Local Examination Papers, &c. Classified by T. S. Harvey, 
F.S.ScLoND. Cloth, 2s. 

jT'EY TO ABOVE. The Problems and Exercises fully worked out as 
they should be in an Examination Paper. Cloth, ^. 6d. 

A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON BOOK-KEEPING BY DOUBLE- 
ENTRY, for the use of Schools, and for Self-instruction. By David 
Tolmie, Accountant. 64 pp., crown Svo, cloth, is. Key, 2s. 6d. 



GRAMMAR. 

ELEMENTARY ENGLISH GRAMMAR. 

STANDARDS II. and III. in paper covers, each id.; in cloth, ■zd. 
STANDARDS IV. and V. in paper, each ■2d.; cloth, 3^. 
STANDARD VI.-VII. paper, 3^.; cloth, ^d. 

COMPLETE ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND ANALYSIS. New 

Edition. 180 pp., cloth boards, is. 
ELEMENTARY ETYMOLOGY. Paper cover, 2d.; cloth, 3./. 

"yEST-CARDS IN GRAMMAR AND ANALYSIS. Based on the 
Complete English Grammar, for Standards II. to VI. Each packet, gd. 

QOMPENDIOUS ENGLISH GRAMMAR. For Intermediate and 
Higher Schools and Pupil-teachers. 192 pp., cloth, i^. 6d. 

T^HE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE: An Outline 

for Schools, Pupil-teachers, and Students. 64 pp., f'cap Svo, 

cloth limp, 6d. ; cloth boards, go'. 
UAND-BOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION EXERCISES. 

Comprising Short Stories, Subjects and Hints for Essays, Rules and 

Models for Letters, &c. Foolscap, cloth, is. 



Blackie &-= Son^s Ediccatiotial List. 



TEXT-BOOKS for the SPECIFIC SUBJECTS, 

Adapted to tneet the Code requirements. 

ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. By Vincent T. Murche. 

Book I. — First Year's Course. Paper, /i^-^ cloth, 5^/. 
Book II. — Second Year's Course. Paper, 5^/.; cloth, bd. 
Book III. — Third Year's Course. Paper, 5(/. ; cloth, bd. 
Also in one volume, 144 pp., cloth boards, \s. 6d. 

PRINCIPLES OF AGRICULTURE. 

Book I. — First Year. Paper, 3^.; cloth, ^d. 
Book II. — Second Year. Papei", 2)d-; cloth, ^d. 
Bo'ok III.— Third Year. Paper, 3;/.; cloth, 4^/. 
Also in one volume, 144 pp., cloth boards, i^. 

"D OTANY. By Vincent T. Murche. 

Book I. — First Year. Paper, T^d. ; cloth, ^d. 
Book II. — Second Year. Paper, 3^'.; cloth, ^d. 
Book III.— Third Year. Paper, 3(/.; cloth, a^d. 
Also in one volume, 144 pp., cloth boards, is. 

■nOMESTIC ECONOMY. By E. Rice, Late Lecturer on Domestic 
Economy at Cheltenham Training College for Mistresses. 

Part I. — Food. Clothing, &c. Paper, 2,d.; cloth, a^d. 
Part II.— Food. The Dwelling. Paper, 2><^.; cloth, ^d. 
Part III. — Food. Rules for Health. Paper, 3^/.; cloth, 4a'. 

Also in one volume, with Supplement for Pupil-teachers, Students, &c. 
232 pp., cloth boards, is. 6d. 

ALGEBRA. 

Book I. — Notation to Division. Paper, 3(/. ; cloth, a^d. 
Book II. — Simple Equations, &c. Paper, 3^/.; cloth, 4^/. 
Book III. — Easy Quadratic Equations, &c. Paper, 3^'. ; cloth, j\d. 
Answers to each Part, 3(/. 
Also in one volume, with Answers. 240 pp., cloth boards, 2s. 

JYJAGNETISM AND ELECTRICITY. By W. G. Baker, B.A., 
Lecturer at Clieltenham Training College. 

Part I. — Magnetism. Paper, yL\ cloth, d,d. 
Part II. — Frictional Electricity. Paper, 3^/. ; cloth, ^d. 
Part III. — Voltaic Electricity. Paper, 3^/. ; cloth, 4;/. 
Also in one volume. 144 pp., cloth boards, i.c 



Blackie &= Son^s Educational List. 



SCIENCE. 

QUTLINES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY FOR SCHOOLS. 
By J. D. Everett, d.c.l., f.r.s., Professor of Natural Philosophy 
in Queen's College, Belfast. With 216 woodcuts. F'cap 8vo, cloth, 4^. 
ELEMENTARY TEXT- BOOK OF PHYSICS. By Professor 
Everett, d.c.l., f.r.s. Illustrated by many Woodcuts. Third 
Edition, Revised. F'cap 8vo, cloth, y. 6d. 
r\ESCHANEL'S NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. An Elementary 
Treatise. By Professor A. Privat Deschanel, of Paris. Trans- 
lated and Edited by Professor J. D. Everett, d.c.l., f.r.s. 8th 
Edition, revised throughout, and Additions inserted bringing it up to the 
present time. Illustrated by 783 Engravings on wood, and 3 Coloured 
Plates. Medium 8vo, cloth, 18^.; also in Parts, limp cloth, 4J. 6d. each. 

Part I. — Mechanics, Hydrostatics, &c. 

Part II.— Heat. 

Part III. — Electricity and Magnetism. 

Part IV. — Sound and Light. 

"CLEMENTARY TEXT-BOOK OF TRIGONOMETRY. By R. H. 
PiNKERTON, B.A. OxoN. 176 pp., foolscap 8vo, cloth, 2S. 6d.. 

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE DIFFERENTIAL AND INTE- 
GRAL CALCULUS. With examples of applications to Mechanical 
Problems, By W. J. Millar, c.e. F'cap 8vo, cloth, is. 6d. 



BOOKS FOR PUPIL-=TEACHERS. 

r^OMMON THINGS AND ELEMENTARY SCIENCE, in the 
form of Object Lessons. By Joseph Hassell, A.K.C.Lond. With 
200 Illustrations. Fourth Edition. 384 pp., crown 8vo, cloth, y. 6d. 

YHE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF TEACHING. A Manual 

of Method for Pupil-Teachers and Assistant Masters. Intended for 

. Government Inspected Schools, and for the use of Students in Training 

Colleges. By A. Park, f.r.g.s. Interleaved with ruled paper. 

F'cap 8vo, cloth, 3^. 

"TEXT-BOOK OF DOMESTIC ECONOMY. For Pupil- Teachers, 
Students in Training Colleges, and Candidates for Schoolmistresses' 
Certificates. By E. Rice, Lecturer on Domestic Economy at Chelten- 
ham Training College. 232 pp., f'cap Svo, cloth, is. 6d. 

QUTLINES OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, Ancient, Medl^val, 
and Modern, with special relation to the History of Civilization and 
the Progress of Mankind. By Edgar Sanderson, m.a., late Scholar 
of Clare College, Cambridge. With numerous Illustrations and Eight 
Coloured Maps. 664 pp., crown 8vo, cloth, red edges, 6^-. 6d. 



Blackie Ss^ Son's Educational List. 1 3 



BOOKS FOR PUPIL-TEACHERS— Cw///////^^. 

J^ISTORY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. By Edgar Sanderson, 
M.A., late Scholar of Clare College, Cambridge. With Illustrations, 
Genealogical Tables, Maps, and Plans. 441 pp., cloth, red edges, 2s. 6d. 

QUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND fiom Early 
Times to the Present Day. By George Girling, Head Master ol' 
Burghley Road School, London. Illustrated, 454 pp., red edges, 2s. 6d. 

P^ EPITOME OF HISTORY, Ancient, Medi/Eval, and Modern. 
For Higher Schools, Colleges, and Private Study. By Carl Ploetz. 
Translated with extensive additions by William H. Tillinghast, 
Harvard College, Cambridge, U.S.A. 630 pp., postSvo, cloth, 7^-. 6d. 

p^ SYNOPSIS OF ENGLISH HISTORY: or. Historical Note 
Book. For the Use of Pupil-Teachers, Students, &c. Compiled by 
Herbert Wills. Third Edition. 144 pp., crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 

P^ SYNOPSIS OF SCOTTISH HISTORY: or, Historical Note 
Book. For the use of Students and Teachers. Compiled by Her- 
bert Wills. 154 pp., crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 

A PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF MODERN GEOGRA- 
PHICAL NAMES, nearly ten thousand in number; with Notes on 
Spelling and Pronunciation, and explanatory Lists of Foreign words. By 
George G. Chisholm, m.a., b.sc, f.r.g.s. F'cap 8vo, cloth, is. 6d. 

A NNANDALE'S CONCISE ENGLISH DICTIONARY. A Concise 
Dictionary of the English Language, Literary, Scientific, Etymological, 
and Pronouncing. Based on Ogilvie's Imperial Dictionary. By 
Charles Annandale, m.a., ll.d. 832 pp., foolscap 4to, cloth, 
lOJ. 6d.; half-morocco, 1 5 J'. 

T"HE STUDENT'S ENGLISH DICTIONARY, Etymological, 
Pronouncing, and Explanatory. By John Ogilvie, ll.d. 
For the use of Colleges and Advanced Schools. Illustrated by 300 En- 
gravings on wood. Imp. i6mo, Roxburgh, 7^. 6d.; half-calf, 10s. 6d. 

r\R. OGILVIE'S SMALLER ENGLISH DICTIONARY for the 
Use of Schools. Abridged by the Author from the "Student's Dic- 
tionary." Imp. i6mo, cloth, red edges, 2^. 6d.; Roxburgh, 3^-. ()d. 

r\R. BURNS'S PRAXIS PRIMARIA. Progressive Exercises in 
Writing Latin, with Notes on Syntax, on Idiomatic Differences, 
and on Latin Style. Eighth Ed. F'cap Svo, clutli, 2s. Key, 3^. 6d. 



14 



Blackie &= SotCs Ediicatiotial List. 



Approved by the Science and Art Department, South Kensington. 

VERE FOSTER'S DRAWING COPY-BOOKS. 

With Instructions and paper to draw on. Superior Edition, in Numbers 
at zd. Popular Edition (a selection), at i.d. Complete Edition, 
in Twelve Parts, at (^d. (Each part complete in itself.) 



Nos. 



Part 1.-ELEMENTARY. 



Al Initiatory Lessons. 

A2 Letters and Numerals. 

B 1 Familiar Objects (Straight Lines). 

B2 Domestic Objects (Simple). 

Part II.-OBJECTS. 

CI Domestic Objects (Flat). 

C2 Domestic Objects (Perspective). 

Dl Leaves (Flat). 

D2 Leaves (Natural). 

Part in.— PLANTS. 

El Plants (Simple Forms). 

E2 Plants (More Complex Forms). 

Gl Flowers (Simple Forms). 

G-2 Flowers (More Complex Forms). 



Part IV.-ORNAMENT 



II 



Elementary Forms. 

1 2 Simple Forms (Fretwork, Ironwork, &c.). 

13 Advanced (Carving, Sculpture, &c.). 

14 Ornament (Classic, Renaissance, &c.). 

Part v.— TREES. 

J 1 Oak, Fir, &c., with " touch " for each tree. 

J2 Beech, Elm, &c. do. do. 

J 3 Oak, Chestnut, Birch, &c., do. do. 

Ji Larch, Poplar, Lime, Willow, &C., do. 

Part VL— LANDSCAPE. 
K 1 Rustic Landscape in Outline. 
K3 Shaded Objects and Landscapp. 
Ks Shaded Landscape and Rustic Scenes. 
K4 Advanced Landscape and Rural Scenes. 



Nos. Part VII.-MARINE. 

M 1 Boats, Foregrounds, and Nautical Bits. 
M 2 Fishing Craft, Coasters, and Traders. 
M3 Yachts and Vessels of every Rig and Sail. 
M4 Coast Scenes, Waves, &c. 

Parts VIII. and IX.-ANIMALS. 

1 Birds and Quadrupeds. 

02 Poultry, various breeds. 

03 British Small Birds. 

4 British Wild Animals. 

5 Horses (Arab, Hunter, Dray, cSic). 

G Horses (Racer, Trotter, Ponj-, Mule, &o.). 

7 Dogs (Seventeen Species). 

08 Cattle, Sheep, Pigs, Goats, &e. 

9 Cattle, Sheep, Lambs, Ass and Foal, &c. 

OlO Foreign Wild Animals and Birds. 

Part X.-HUMAN FIKURE. 

Q 1 Features (from the Antique and from the 
Life). 

Q2 Heads, Hands, &c. (from Cast and Life). 

Q 3 Rustic Figures, by Duncan. 

Q 4 Figure, from tlie Antique (OutUne). 
Part XI. -PRACTICAL GEOMETRY. 

Rl Definitions and Simple Problems. 

R2 Practical Geometry (Circle, Polygon. 
Ellipse). 

R3 Applied Geometry jor Practical Me- 
chanics, ti-G. 
Part XIL-MECHANICAL DRAWING. 

T 1 Initiatory and SimiJe Subjects. 

T2 Details of Tools and Working Parts, &c. 

T 3 Models for Working Drawings, ic. 

T4 Details of Machines and Engines. 

Z Blank Exercise Book. 



Popular Edition. A selection of the above numbers printed on thin paper, 
price id. each number. The following are in print : — A, B, C, D, E2, E3, G, 
Ii, I2, I3, I4, J2, Ki, Mi, M4, O7, 08, O9, Oio, Q, Ri, R2, R3, R4, Ti, 
T5, T6, T7, T8, Z. 



Adopted by the London and other principal School Boards. 

VERE FOSTER'S DRAWING-CARDS. 

Firs^ Grade, Set I. — Familiar Objects, 24 cards, price \s. 
First Grade, Set II. — Leaf Form, geometrically treated, 24 cards, price u. 
First Grade, Set III. — Elementary Ornament, 24 cards, price \s. 
Second Grade. — Ornament, by F. E. Hulme, 18 large cards, price 2s. 
Advanced Series. — Animals, by Harrison Weir, 24 cards, price is. 6d. 



BLOCKS SPECIALLY PREPARED FOR SKETCHING FROM NATURE. 

No. I {6%" y. <\ %"), Threepence. No. 2 {9" x ()%"), Sixpence. 



Blackie &^ Sou's Educational List. 1 5 

Sanctioned by the Committee of Council on Education. 

POYNTER'S 
SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK. 



-pREEHAND DRAWING. Each Book has Fine Cartridge Paper to 
draw on. 

Freehand, Elementary. Simple Forms, Leaves, and Flowers. Two 

Books, 6d. each. 
Freehand, First Grade. Simple Objects, Ornament (Flat and 

Perspective). Six Books, 6d. each. 
Freehand, PLANTS (First Grade). Six Books, 6d. each. 
Freehand, Second Grade. Ornament (Greek, Renaissance, &c.). 

Four Books, is. each. 



Adopted by the London and other principal School Boards. 

THE SAME SUBJECTS ON CARDS. 

Elementary Freehand Cards, Four Packets, price gd. each. 

First Grade Freehand Cards, Six ,, i.f. od. ,, 

First Grade Freehand Cards — Plants, Six ,, is. od. ,, 

Second Grade Freehand Cards, Four ,, is. 6d. 



ULEMENTARY HUMAN FIGURE. Four Books, 6d. each. 

Book I. — Michelangelo's "David" — Features (Eye, Nose, etc.). 

Book II. — Masks, from Antique Sculpture. 

Books III. and IV. — Hands and Feet, from Sculpture. 

LJUMAN FIGURE, Advanced. Three Books, imp. 4to, 2s. each. 

Book I. — Head of the Venus of Melds. 
Book II. — Head of the Youthful Bacchus. 
Book III.— Head of David by Michelangelo. 

piGURES FROM THE CARTOONS OF RAPHAEL: Twelve 
Studies of Draped Figures. Drawn direct from the Originals in the 
South Kensington Museum. With Descriptive Text, and Paper for 
Copying. Four Books, imperial 4to, 2s. each. 

pLEMENTARY PERSPECTIVE DRAWING. By S. J. Cart- 
LIDGE, F,R.Hi.st.S., Lecturer in tlie National Art Training School, South 
Kensington. Four Books, is. each ; or one volume, clotli, ^s. 

„ , ,.■ .- For Second Grade Ex.amination of the Department. 
Book II. t ^ 

Book III. — Accidental Vanishing Points. 

Book IV. — Higher Perspective. 



1 6 Blackie &^ Sofi's Educational List. 



Adopted by the School Board for London. 

DRAWING FOR THE STANDARDS. 

By T. R. ABLETT 

Superintendent of Drawing to the School Board for London. 

This entirely New and Original Series of Drawing Copies has been pre- 
pared with the view of enabling Drawing as a Class Subject to be taught 
in all the Standards in the most effective way, and in strict conformity with 
the demands of the Education Code and the Instructions of the Department. 
The aim has been to lead the pupil by easy gradations from the simplest 
forms to the more difficult, and at the same time to render the work of the 
whole course interesting and attractive to the learner. Demonstration 
Sheets and Slate-cards form part of the Series, by the use of which the 
labour of the Teacher is much reduced and the work of instruction made 
easy. 

DRAWING COPIES. 

PRICE TWOPENCE EACH BOOK. 



Book 

1. for Standards I. -II. (Elementary). 

2. for ,, (Advanced). 

3. for „ (Judgment at 

Sight, &c.). In preparation. 

4. for Standard III. (Freehand). 

5. for ,, (Geometrical). 

6. for ,, (Exam. Tests). 

7. for Standard IV. (Freehand). 



Book 

8. for Standard IV. (Geometry and 
Drawing to Scale).* 

g. for Standard V. (Freehand). 
10. for ,, (Solid Geometry).* 

IT. for Standard VI. (Freehand). 

12. for ,, (Solid Geometry).* 

13. for Standard VII. (Solid Geom.).* 

* In preparatio7i. 



Model Drawing for Stand. IV. V. VI. VII. (for Teachers' use). In preparation. 
Shaded Drawing for Standard VII. (for Teachers' use). In preparation. 



Ruled Exercise Book.— Geometrically Ruled and Outlined to suit Book i (Standards 
I. -II., Elementary). Price '2d. 

Blank Exercise Book. — Containing good drawing paper for copying the exercises on 
an enlarged scale. Price 2d. 

Scholar's Slate-card (6" X 8").— Specially prepared and ruled for enlargement of exer- 
cises in Standards I. -I I. Price id. 

Teacher's Slate-card (i8"X24"). — Geometrically ruled for black-board work, Stan- 
dards I. -II. Price IS. 6d. 



DEMONSTRATION SHEETS. 

[The Copies for the Standards enlarged for Black-hoard Work.) 

The Copies on the Demonstration Sheets correspond with those in the book of 
Drawing Copies of the same number. Printed on stout paper, ii^' y.z^Yz' , mounted 
with roller, y. 6d. per set. 



Set I. for Stand. I. -II. (Elementary). 
Set 2. ,, ,, (Advanced). 

Set 3. ,, ,, In preparation. 



Set 4. for Stand. III. (Freehand). 
Set s- ,, >• (Geometrical). 

Set 6. ,, „ (Exam. Tests). 



Other Standards in preparation. 



i '^ ilrflfii I ■ ■ » ■,■> -*- -- • .. 



*' .2^: 






I, ■> ^ " 



■■< 














ill 












LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



Vk4-> 



019 744 286 4 









